Getting Leading Physicians Active on this Forum

[Bill - Managing Publisher]

Gorpy,

You make some excellent points and some that I've been wrestling with for years (even before I became the Associate Publisher). I strongly want to preserve this community as patient driven and don't want to see it become overrun by consultants and physicians. I also want to preserve the educational aspect and minimize promotion.

On the other hand, our physicians and consultants play an important role in our community and add significant value by answering general hair loss and hair transplant related questions, specific clinical questions, and posting patient photos. Though posting patient photos on our forum is somewhat promotional, it is also educational. Patient members often come here and ask about specific recommended or Coalition surgeons in their area, and in many cases, can't find a lot of information posted about them.

In an ideal world, all clinics would involve themselves at least a little bit but strongly encourage their patients to get involved here and post their results and photos. This will help preserve the patient community while physicians still acquire additional online visibility.

One idea I was toying with was creating a "hair transplant doctor to patient photo album" section where we can encourage all of our clinics to post patient photo albums but not clutter the patient posted photo albums by keeping them separate. It would still be a valuable resource for patients to view and participate, interact with, and ask questions about the physician posted album, but patients can separate themselves out by posting their own in the "hair transplant patient photo album" section. However, I'm not sure that this is the perfect solution either.

I agree that it's quite a dilemma, and I'm not sure that we will ever find a perfect solution, but hopefully one that at least improves the online visibility of our clinics while preserving this patient based educational community.

Thanks for your valuable insight.

Bill

[HairDew]

Good Points Bill!

I think (and I know my opinion is worth very little) doctors SHOULD have their own forum where they can post photos of their patients. Self promoting? Sure! but still it is a good incentive for them to post here.

Obviously any NON-coalition doctor with sub-par results will probably post one of their best results BUT....combine that with photos with real patients and I think you can make your informative decision easier.

Just my $0.02

[Bill - Managing Publisher]

and I know my opinion is worth very little

HairDew,

I hope you don't generally have that low of an opinion of yourself . Your opinion is worth a lot! Thanks for sharing it

Bill

[Bill - Managing Publisher]

I also posted this on the topic that Pat referenced above, but felt compelled to post it here as well:

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Dear forum members,

The difficulty we face is maintaining a delicate balance between running an open discussion forum and keeping it from becoming strictly promotional. Where should the line be drawn if one should be drawn at all?

On one hand I firmly believe that clinics who get involved online are an asset to this community. I also have no problem with promotion as long as honest results and information is being shared. After all, patients are seeking information and want to see real results.

But is there a point where too much clinical involvement will overrun patient involvement? Do we want a patient driven community or one that is dominated by clinics? How can we maintain a delicate balance between them to be fair both to our recommended clinics and patients?

I have tried to help maintain this balance by asking physicians and clinics to stay clear of "who is best" type threads. Though some agreed with this, others did not. And in the interest of keeping things as open as possible to everyone, I have lifted the rule.

At the same time, in my opinion, it is in poor taste to promote on these types of threads for a number of reasons. One, it may drive doctors to feel that they must compete against one another for patients which can lead to a lack of respect for one another, and two which in my opinion is even worse, the prospective patient is forgotten and lost.

Case in point, what ever happened "kiss" who started this thread? Has he been completely forgotten? I'd love to hear from him as to whether or not this thread has been helpful or harmful to his research.

Generally speaking, I don't think there is a perfect answer to this conundrum. So for now, I encourage doctors and consultants to feel free to post, but do so in the interest of patient education first and foremost with promotion as a natural and be respectful to your peers.

Best wishes,

Bill

[HairDew]

Originally posted by Bill:

HairDew,

I hope you don't generally have that low of an opinion of yourself . Your opinion is worth a lot! Thanks for sharing it

Bill

No, of course not Bill I'm generally a very LIFE LOVING person. Does hairloss bother me a lot? Of course it does. But I don't think I'm the kind of person to be bother to extent of suicide etc.

I was just referring to the fact that I MYSELF had not had HT done so I can't really comment from my OWN experience. But I still think potential Newbies like myself can benefit from 2 sides of the ocean (Patient/Doctor pic results)

[hairthere]

i don't think you all are giving enough credit to the patient/consumer. if a "who's best" type post comes up and a doc/clinic answers by showing results there should be no real problem. the propsective patient is either impressed or not. take dr. deyarman for example: he posted results and many of us were clearly unimpressed. it may have raised his online visibility, but in a negative way. i agree that it would be nice if more docs became involved, but it's unlikely and i don't think docs who are more active should be prohibited from showcasing their work: let the consumer decide.