Directory of Laser Physicians

[coldbliss]

Hello Moderators,

I think we should create a directory of laser physicians as a reference guide for rosacea sufferers. I noticed that many people visiting rosacea forums have no idea where to find qualified physicians treating rosacea patients.

We should list the clinic's address, phone number, and web site address. I think it would be great to highlight the kind of machinery used to treat rosacea patients.

Should rosacea forum posters provide reviews of the doctor? I think we have to be careful. A quick review is fine but there shouldn't be detailed reviews of the treatment protocols. There could be confidentiality issues involved here. Patients have the right to post whether they would recommend a certain doctor or clinic.

Any patient that posts a barrage of negative comments towards a doctor or treatment clinic should not be approved for posting. This is not a forum for people who have axes to grind with certain doctors.

Let me know what you think of this recommendation.

Craig

[Warren]

This is a good idea and this has come up before. The main problem that there is a lack of numbers to make it useful. There are 500 members of this forum (+ a few unregistered) and then only a small fraction will be bothered to write a review of a doctor. Another thing is that information gets out of date after a few years as doctors can change machines and get different training.

I think what some people may find more helpful is a how-to guide on how to find doctors in their area and information about those doctors such as identifing the machine they use and finding reviews for it and also to find any reviews for the doctor on the internet as well. If you are interested in writing something like this then visit the [[Main Page]] on the Rosacea Wiki and and start a new article.

Currently members are advised to write any doctor reviews in the "regions" forum. There is also the treatment type review database at [[rosacea.co.uk]].

[Brady Barrows]

There are all sorts of problems with physician databases as Warren has already mentioned, last but not least is accessing the information. Can you find what you are looking for through searching the database or is the information difficult to obtain?

Andrew Reid's database is the most popular but has the problem I mention above but go there and see if you can find what you are looking for >

http://rosacea.co.uk/

This highlights that a database is only relevant if it works for you. It may not work for everyone else. But no doubt Andrew spent hours and hours trying to make his database work and it has been the most popular so far.

I have three other databases working right now that have not proved popular at all:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/rosaceans/database
http://www.rosaceans.com:80/tinc?key=zY315SNX&formname=MD
http://www.rosaceans.com:80/tinc?key=zY315SNX&formname=IPL

I have a page dedicated listing many physican search databases run by some very prestigious medical organizations >

http://www.rosaceans.com/html/md.html

Take for example, The American Academy of Dermatologists' search engine at this url >

http://www.aad.org/public/searchderm.htm

This is an example of one of the cool databases to find a dermatologist
and probably cost a lot of money to set up. The other problem with databases that are relevant to rosaceans is that they are time consuming and take hours and hours to set up to make it relevant for what the purpose of the data is for. Two problems: Time and money.

Warren has excellent database knowledge and has set up a very user friendly database for administrators of the RRDi that allows us to access the corporate member list, what volunteer skills any have to offer, whether the member wants the Newsletter and other very cool features. This took Warren hours to implement and is still an ongoing work in progress. Volunteers have limited time and there are problems organizing them to do this kind of work mainly due to delegation issues. And then there is the problem that Warren brought up, privacy issues, not using a database to slander physicians, and just what data needs to be available.

The RRDi was set up to be a rosacea patient advocacy non profit organization along with doing rosacea research. It is all volunteers doing this work. If the RRDi set up a physician database this would take time and money and no doubt a continuous work load for volunteers. This could be done if enough rosaceans want it and demand it. I suggest you join the RRDi and voice your concerns. You may do so at this url >

http://irosacea.org/html/join.html

You could also volunteer by detailing what services you could offer the RRDi.