Medical questions

Question

There have been quite a few medical help related questions recently, e.g., Clicking and clicking noise with bench presses. And I, for one, have a problem with this.

1. They cannot be answered the way a person wants. Any answer given here might be bad for their health, and in some cases, even deadly.
2. Most of them are too specific, and would probably not help most of the users that come to the site
3. More often than not they call for a discussion, not a concise answer.

So, what I'm thinking is: Maybe we should create a new close option? It could say something like this:

This question has been closed due to its medical nature, as it cannot be answered correctly without discussion and/or extensive medical knowledge.

Also, could we create a sort of standard disclaimer for the more broad medical questions? Something like:

Standard disclaimer: I am not a doctor, therefore my answer should not be taken literally, nor can I be liable for any damage caused from acting on my answer.

The disclaimer is not really an issue, per se, but it could be a nice thing to have, instead of reinventing it each time a medical question pops up.

Answer 1

Going back to your initial three categories:

1. They cannot be answered the way a person wants. Any answer given here might be bad for their health, and in some cases, even deadly.

   In this case, I'd be likely to close it as either off topic or "Not a Real Question".

2. Most of them are too specific, and would probably not help most of the users that come to the site

   Close as too local.

3. More often than not they call for a discussion, not a concise answer.

   Close as subjective or argumentative.

Do you have examples that fall outside the existing close rationales?

Answer 2

This question, and others like it, is actually quite broad and should encompass this entire site - that is almost all of the advice given on this site will have some sort of medical implication.

Great example:
Someone extols the virtues of long distance running in an answer to a question. Someone is at home, reading this advice, Let's say he is a male over 45, and has a family history of coronary disease. Any gym instructor or personal trainer would advise him to get a clearance certificate or letter from a doctor before commencing on a physical training program that involves high impact cardio (that includes long distance running).

OP's and the answerers have no way of knowing the medical conditions of the people reading them. However, any fitness advice given does require knowledge of said medical conditions. Hence I agree that disclaimers are quite necessary.

• Should that answer be there?
  • Yes
• Should that answer have included a disclaimer
  • Yes, but what if the author omits it at his own discretion?
• Should this site enforce some sort of way for such disclaimers to appear automatically?
  • Yes

For the last question, my own suggestion is that:

• All questions come with a medical disclaimer that is automatically appended.
• Users of the site can then vote to remove the disclaimer much in the same way that they vote to close a question.
• By default all questions include disclaimers, unless later removed - better to err on the side of caution

Answer 3

I would add a category to the effect: "Answering the question requires the answerer to make or infer a diagnosis, i.e. the practice of medicine".

This is one reason (there are many) such questions are not allowed on the Wikipedia reference desks.

I really think this is an issue for this site, and (IMHO) one cannot simply assume anyone who looks for medical advice on the Internet is a fool (their foolishness would not excuse our own).