Medical Questions

[Alison Boler]

Taking into account Ben's advice at the top of the forum re the fact that discussions within here on medical matters must be "opinion" rather than anything else, it occurred to me that perhaps we should offer the UKSDMC a forum here within our facilities. Their own website seems a bit out of date so perhaps they lack web support and it might be a way for the referees to keep in touch.

Clearly, some of the posts would be "private", and some public if they were of a more generally informative nature.

Has anyone approached them? In the past the BSAC used to fund their activities, don't know if they still do, but this might be a cost effective way we could help them and also help members by putting them in touch.

Allie

[Adrian Kelland]

It is probably worth a try Allie. Do you know any to ask?

The doc giving the Depression talk at DOC did mention their own internal forum where they put up diving medical questions for others to comment. Given that no names to be used, that could easily be done here. Possibly two areas, one where they can chat among themselves, and invite them to comment more often in a general medical area.

It would be good to have an area that avoid the standard 'You need to talk to a diving referee' type answer. While correct it is not helpful. A history of medical based threads may well help a person understand what type of issues to expect. It is probably for this kind of reason that there are so many self-help groups for every disease under the sun on the 'net.

We would probably have to have a disclaimer that any 'true answer' should still come from Referee/GP discussion with the diver in question.

Adrian

[Taff Griffiths]

"Taking into account Ben's advice at the top of the forum re the fact that discussions within here on medical matters must be "opinion" rather than anything else, it occurred to me that perhaps we should offer the UKSDMC a forum here within our facilities. Their own website seems a bit out of date so perhaps they lack web support and it might be a way for the referees to keep in touch.

Clearly, some of the posts would be "private", and some public if they were of a more generally informative nature".

A good idea my only problem with this would be it would have to be clearly stated that it is only a informed general opinion and not to be used as a diagnosis or a treatment.

If anyone has got any medical issues they MUST seek an personal opinion of a medical referee.

[Alison Boler]

It is probably worth a try Allie. Do you know any to ask?


Hmmm. Well, I've met some over the years, but can't say I know any of them well. Probably this would best be an idea put at Council as John Betts is a VP and was - may still be - on the UKSDMC. Maybe Keith could suggest to him???


The doc giving the Depression talk at DOC did mention their own internal forum where they put up diving medical questions for others to comment. Given that no names to be used, that could easily be done here. Possibly two areas, one where they can chat among themselves, and invite them to comment more often in a general medical area.


I suspect that the one where they chat amongst themselves would be better on their own website if they can do it. They might not feel confidant in the confidentiality otherwise!!! Tin hat goes on! Funny old lot, doctors :D :p Very secretive!!

Ahhhhh... Tin hat off..... I was more thinking that we could offer a "public" medical forum where members could contact the referees or pose questions that could be answered by anyone (as now) or by the referees if they had time. Obviously with all the usual "please bear in minds etc". However, if the question was of a personal nature from the outset or if the thread came to the point where the referree thought it would be better offline then it could move to personal messaging or a closed forum.


It would be good to have an area that avoid the standard 'You need to talk to a diving referee' type answer. While correct it is not helpful.

Exactly.

That's always the problem, but if the UKSDMC referrees registered we could set up a system whereby at least some of these things could be started by personal messages - it might save an awful lot of telephoning and leaving messages.

Then again, some threads could be answered pretty plainly and informatively, which could then provide a good source for our users.

I don't know - it would all depend on whether the medical referrees would be willing to take part or not.

Anybody out there????

Allie

[Mike Halligan]

Hi, Allie,

Two things come to mind ....

First, Ben's advice does not appear when one joins a thread from the New Posts board

Second, I take a number of calls and e-mails from persons involved in diving, or learning scuba, with a form of disability. These frequently jump the gun, pitching straight in with "How do I do it?" and my advice is necessarily in stages,
describing what diving/training routinely involves -
taking a look at the UKSDMC form -
waiting while a referee is consulted -
then the proper business of sorting out the means of diving / training.

The largest part of these discussions is case-specific and confidential, so the Forum style would be, in my experience, very harmful to the exploratory nature of the conversations. All concerned must be confident who they are talking to, in what context and under what seal of confidence.

I have thought of putting together a general briefing, say one of the A series information sheets. However, so far it would be no bigger than Noddy's book of swear-words.

Hope this helps,

Mike
Accessibility@bsac.com

[Alison Boler]

Mike

I thought we could use the forums for open general enquiries and the personal (therefore private) messaging available "through" the forums for the more personal stuff.

Maybe it's a no go but it would be good to have some decent online medical advice available.

Cheers

Allie

[Ben Panter]

First, Ben's advice does not appear when one joins a thread from the New Posts board
Yeup, short of some much deeper and more involved changes we can't really do much about that. The "sticky" post is the best we can manage... In order to start a thread to this forum the user will have to at the least view the page which has that at the top. It has 122 views so far (can't imagine that many people reading it twice!) it seems to be doing ok.

Ben

[Tristan Green]

Two things come to mind ....

First, Ben's advice does not appear when one joins a thread from the New Posts board
Ta Da - now that's where you're wrong! :D It does now :) .

Hopefully the message should appear at the top of every page where you are viewing something in this forum. If you find some route around this or a page where the message doesn't appear then please let me know.

Sorry Ben, I haven't yet worked out how it's possible to embed your html link in the description field at the top of the page - maybe someone else can get it to work for me.


:) Woo hoo - as you can see I've just worked out how to do the links as well. I'm chuffed and off to the fridge for a second beer (as the first seems to have helped so far). Not that I'm condoning drinking in any way relating to diving :eek:


Cheers,
Tristan