Some Thoughts On a Medically Supervised Forum and Some Wider Implications

Last night I posed questions that had to do with structuring of the Med Help Forum. They weren't spam or other such nonsense. They pointed out that the problems I wanted to address could not easily be put into 2000 character sound bites. The questions never made it to the public area of the forum, although they were certainly relevant.

What have I found out? That although doctors are present here, or perhaps because doctors are present here, the way the system is set up only simple questions can be addressed and they can only deal with the health issue at hand, and not with a possible difficulty with the forum format and structure.

Your time is clearly too valuable, your services too greatly in need to have any consideration of such matters from ordinary plebeian individuals.
I understand your need to keep the chatty masses at bay. I really do. And your charitable efforts are to be commended.

Oops, once again my allowable word limit is almost at an end, and clearly I have wasted your time and mine. Guess I'll just write about my experience here on another forum and on my blog.

I had no expectation of censorship of my initial remarks, which were certainly in the public interest. I now regret that I didn't save a copy of them so that I could illustrate with precision what you elected to simply delete without comment.

I no longer have the expectation that you will not delete a thoughtful relevant post. If I err in this perspective I will listen to, and even publish your perspective. Know why? Because censorship is a malignant cancer in the social body.

I have written this with considerable dismay.
Anthropositor

Addition:
Now, a couple of days later, I am still trying to put this in the appropriate perspective. First, why am I even upset? It certainly comes as no surprise to me that this could happen. And certainly, in the name of efficiency, and being able to help the maximum number of people, a certain encouragement of brevity is not really out of line. But the truth is, proper assessment of medical problems does not lend itself to short questions or answers.

Having seen a years worth of comments about intractable health problems on a forum with no doctors ever participating, and read hundreds of comments concluding that doctors made misdiagnoses based on instant assessments of information provided by patients who were not uniformly well equipped to communicate in the first place, I found myself sometimes giving the doctor the benefit of the doubt.

It is really very difficult not to, because we are daily inundated with messages in our commercial media with phrases like "remember, only your doctor can diagnose..." or other such indoctrinations. We consumers collectively, are really incredibly gullible and largely incapable of making our own informed medical assessments and decisions.

So although this started out because of some routine censorship, the real issue is our mindless hero worship of medical professionals, and an unquestioning dependence on them which does not serve us well at all.

Even the smartest, most successful and best educated of us are pervasively inundated in doctrines which we are literally incapable of effectively evaluating or even recognizing. Why would I be so surprised and shocked at the routine censorship on that medical forum? And the doctors themselves and/or their staff, undoubtedly think of themselves as good guys doing good things.