Like all the Guides at About.com, I, DrRich, am a real person. Check out my bio to see for yourself.
I check the Heart Disease Forum regularly. Post your questions or comments and you'll get input from a variety of voices. If you want to give links to noncommercial web sites related to heart disease, you are welcome to do so. SPAM or other posts that are not relevant to this community will be deleted.
You can also e-mail me at heartdisease.guide@about.com if you have suggestions, such as additional links or feature articles you want to see added to the Heart Disease/Cardiology site. If you have questions related to heart disease or to your own personal medical issues, however, you will find me more responsive (i.e., quicker to respond, and with a more detailed answer) if you post your question on the Heart Disease Forum . Quite simply, I will usually spend more time and give a more thoughtful answer if that answer might be helpful to hundreds or thousands of readers, rather than to just one person.
F.A.Q.
- Q. Can you give me free medical advice?
- A. Now, why would I want to do that?
Actually, as much as I'd like to, it would be illegal for me to dispense specific medical advice to individuals over the Internet. What I can do, however, is to provide the resources for you to get pointed in the right direction - to help you learn what you should be thinking about related to your heart, what questions you need to have answered, and how to find those answers.
- Q. If you're such a good doc, why are you doing this ?
- A. Now, now.
I left the practice of medicine for the noblest of reasons - I was fed up with what the health care system was asking me to do with (and to) my patients. I left with a new career in mind: 1) to find ways of helping patients to defend themselves in a hostile health care system; and 2) to stir the soup. This website is one way to accomplish goal #1. I'm working on goal #2 through two different websites: The Grand Unification Theory of Healthcare, and The Covert Rationing Blog.
- Q. Are the forums monitored?
- A. Yes, but rarely edited or censored. If I find something grossly harmful or abusive, I will try to fix it. If I find it merely silly, I may post a comment on it. But in general, I will let messages stand as they are. This means you should take any advice you get on the forums for what it is - opinions of anonymous individuals with unknown credentials. Some of it will be quite top shelf, but some will be far less than that - just as in any community of individuals trying to help each other out.
