Editorial Policy

Principles

1. The reader is deciding about their eyes. That is the single fact that governs every judgement below. Accuracy beats engagement, and clarity beats persuasion.
2. Certainty must be earned. We state as fact only what we can point at a source for. Everything else is attributed, qualified or left unwritten.
3. Absence of data is published. A missing price, rating or credential is shown as missing. It is never filled with an estimate to make a page look complete.
4. We do not rank. No clinic, surgeon, hospital or procedure is declared best. Comparison is descriptive, never evaluative.
5. Commercial interest never touches editorial judgement. This is not a statement of intent; it is enforced by separating the two in the codebase and by never granting approval rights to a paying clinic.

What we will and will not state

Verification standard

A factual claim about a clinic or a surgeon: a name, an address, a licence, a device, a price, a rating, a credential: is published only after an editor has confirmed it against a primary source and recorded that source in the record itself.

1. Primary sources only. A health authority register, the facility's own published information, or documentation the clinic provides directly. Not another directory, not a search result snippet, not a marketing page quoting someone else.
2. Every field is timestamped. Clinic records carry a verification date and a list of sources. Prices carry the date they were read, because a price without a date is not information.
3. Incomplete records are not published. A record that has not been verified renders as an explicit placeholder rather than a best guess. You will notice that our directory is unusually empty. That is the policy working.
4. Records expire. Clinic and surgeon data is re-checked every 6 months, and immediately when a change is reported.
5. Fabrication is a dismissal-level offence. Inventing a rating, a credential, a price or a testimonial is not a small inaccuracy. It is the thing this site exists to be an alternative to.

Medical review

Medically reviewed content is reviewed by a named, licensed ophthalmologist, and that person is credited on the page. The review confirms that the medical statements are accurate, current and appropriately hedged.

The credit is a name and a date, kept as two separate facts. The reviewer's name comes from a single record that also holds their post-nominals, licensing authority, register entry and any declared commercial interest, so the name on a page and the name on their profile cannot differ. The date is the date of the review, stored separately from the date the page was last edited, so neither is displayed as the other.

Where a page has not yet been reviewed, it displays “Medical review pending” in the article metadata, linked to the medical review page. We do not attach a reviewer's name to content they have not read, and we do not display a review date that reflects an editorial edit rather than a clinical review.

This is a deliberate trade: a visible gap is a weaker trust signal than a false badge, and it is the only version that is honest.

Video standard

We do not host video. Where we embed a third-party video, all three of the following must be true:

1. The URL resolves to the video we believe it does.
2. The publisher is a manufacturer, hospital, medical institution, professional body or a named, credentialed clinician, not an anonymous channel and not a clinic with a commercial interest in the comparison being made.
3. The description does not overstate outcomes in a way our own editorial policy would prohibit us from saying in text.

Until all three are satisfied, the video slot renders an explicit placeholder stating what the slot is for and why it is empty. We do not fill a video slot with an unvetted search result to make a section look finished.

Currently 7 of 7 slots have an approved source, and 0 remain deliberately empty. Manufacturer material is labelled as manufacturer material everywhere it appears.

Patient reviews and testimonials

We publish no patient testimonials. We do not reproduce reviews written by patients of clinics listed on this site. We do not commission before-and-after material or patient stories.

• We cannot establish consent for material we did not commission.
• Reproducing testimonials would make this site a marketing channel, and curated testimonials are exactly that.
• A quote on an editorial page reads as an editorial endorsement. It is not one, and implying otherwise would mislead.

Where a clinic profile displays a rating, it is attributed to the platform it was read from with a link and the date it was read. We do not compute ratings, and we do not aggregate them into a score.

Commercial separation

Participating clinics are separate from the editorial operation. Specifically:

• No clinic approves, edits or reviews editorial content before publication.
• No clinic can pay for a position in a list, a higher directory placement or a better comparative description.
• No safety note, risk section, cost warning or comparison can be removed at a clinic's request.
• Sponsored profiles are labelled at the top of the profile, not in small print.
• Referral fees are disclosed on every page. A clinic that withdraws participation loses a fee; it does not lose a page.

Sourcing and citation

Sources are chosen in this order of preference, and where they conflict we say so rather than picking the more convenient one. Our current reference list contains 27 documents.

1. Clinical reference works and systematic reviews
2. Peer-reviewed literature, labelled as to whether the finding is from a single study or a pooled analysis
3. Health authorities and regulators, for anything about licensing or patient rights
4. Professional bodies, for standards of care
5. Manufacturer documentation, labelled as manufacturer documentation

Each source entry states what the document is and what we used it for, so a reader can audit the reasoning rather than take our summary of it. Link destinations are re-checked every 6 months, and the check date is displayed.

Review and update schedule

• Source link destinations: every 6 months.
• Clinic and surgeon records: every 6 months, or immediately on report.
• Core guides: whenever the underlying evidence changes, and at least annually. Every page displays its last substantive edit date.
• Corrections: actioned as soon as they are confirmed, with the date updated.

Complaints and corrections

Email corrections@smilepro.ae with the page address and what you believe is wrong. Include a source where you have one; it speeds things up considerably.

Clinics seeking a correction to their own factual record should use the same address. Requests to alter editorial content will be declined, and we will say so in writing.

If you believe something on this site could cause harm to a reader, mark the subject line URGENT and it will be treated ahead of everything else.