Medical Review: How We Check What We Publish
Every medical page here states whether a named ophthalmologist has read it. This page explains what that review confirms, what it does not, and what a reviewer has to supply before their name goes on anything.
A review badge is only worth something if you can tell what is behind it. So the badge on this site is not a logo: it is a name, linked to a profile that lists the reviewer's post-nominals, licensing authority and public register entry, next to the date they read the page.
The short version. A review confirms that the medical statements on a page are accurate, hedged where the evidence is uncertain, and do not overstate what the procedure can do. It is not a second opinion on you, and nobody at this site has examined you.
What a review confirms
- That the medical statements on the page are accurate as written.
- That the language is appropriately hedged: what is uncertain is described as uncertain, and nothing is guaranteed.
- That risks, side effects and suitability limits are present rather than omitted or played down.
- That the cited sources support the claims they are attached to, and are current.
- That the page does not read as a recommendation for one procedure, clinic or surgeon.
What a review does not mean
This is the part that is usually left out of a "medically reviewed" badge, so it is stated with the same weight as the part above.
- It is not a second clinical opinion on any individual reader. Nobody has been examined.
- It does not certify that a page is complete, or that it applies to every patient.
- It does not extend to clinic, surgeon or price data, which is checked against primary sources instead.
- It does not extend to reader comments, reviews or any third-party content.
- It does not make the site a substitute for a consultation, and the disclaimer on every page says so.
The review panel
We have not yet appointed a reviewer, so no page carries a review credit. Where a review would appear, the page says "Medical review pending" and links here. That is a deliberate trade: a visible gap is a weaker trust signal than a badge, and it is the only version that is true.
The requirements below are what has to be supplied before a name appears. They are enforceable rather than aspirational: the build fails if a reviewer record claims to be verified without them.
What a reviewer has to supply
Credentials are the most over-claimed thing in medical marketing, so none of these is optional and none is inferred. A record missing any of them cannot name a person on any page.
| Requirement | What it means |
|---|---|
| Full name, as it appears on the practitioner register | Not a preferred name or a marketing spelling: the name has to be the one a regulator can find. |
| Post-nominals | Only ones read off a register or certificate. An empty list is printed as "none confirmed" rather than guessed at. |
| Specialty | A reviewer of refractive-surgery content is an ophthalmologist, not a general practitioner with an interest. |
| Licensing authority and licence number | The regulator that issued it, plus the number, so a reader can check the registration themselves. |
| A link to the public register entry, or the hospital profile | A credential a reader cannot verify is a claim, not a credential. The build refuses to name a reviewer without one of these. |
| The subjects this person reviews | Named in this site’s own subject vocabulary, so a scope claim resolves to a real page of real answers rather than to an area nobody here publishes on. A reviewer is never credited outside that list, and each subject is shown on their profile as a link to the page it covers. |
| Declared commercial interests | Clinic ownership or employment, manufacturer payments, consultancy, equity. Disclosed interests are stated; a missing declaration is shown as missing. |
| Where the credentials were checked, by whom, and on what date | The same gate the clinic and surgeon records use. Unsourced verification data does not pass the build. |
| A factual biography | Training and current practice only. No adjectives about reputation, and nothing that reads as an endorsement. |
How a credit appears on a page
A review is recorded as two facts, never one. The name of the reviewer and the date they read that specific page. Both are shown in the page's metadata line, and the name links to their profile so the credential behind it can be checked rather than taken on trust.
- The review date is the date of the review. It is stored separately from the date an editor last changed the page, and the two are displayed separately. A page can be edited today and last reviewed months ago; collapsing those into one date would make either the review or the edit untrue.
- Structured data follows the page. The page's markup tells search engines and answer engines the same thing the page tells you: who reviewed it, and when. When no reviewer is named, no review date is emitted, for machine readers as much as for you.
- The same name in one place. A reviewer is referenced by a single record, so the name and post-nominals on an article cannot disagree with the name and post-nominals on the profile it links to.
- Scope is explicit. Each reviewer is credited only within the subjects they are qualified for, and those subjects are listed on their profile.
When a review stops being current
A review is a snapshot, not a permanent certification, and it is treated that way.
- A page that changes in substance, whether a new risk is described, a recommendation revised or a source replaced, goes back for review rather than keeping its old badge.
- Cited sources are re-checked every 6 months, and the check date is shown on the sources page.
- Clinic, surgeon and price data is not covered by a medical review at all. It is checked against primary sources on its own cadence, which the editorial policy describes.
If something here is wrong
Tell us. Corrections to a medical statement are treated as more urgent than anything else on the site, and a page under correction says so until it is resolved. The contact page carries the corrections address.
Related
A medical review tells you that a page is accurate as written. It does not tell you anything about your own eyes. Suitability for any procedure depends on measurements that can only be taken in a clinic, and the only way to get that assessment is an examination by a qualified ophthalmologist.