Hi all
Returning this Sunday morning for a brief look at sci.med.cardiology
after an absence of several years, I'm stunned to find it's turned into
a troll-and-flame forum along quasi-religious lines. Or maybe not so
qasi. Who would have thought it?

I even find a Pastor Kutchie, evidently sinking below a certain
threshold of despair, offering the comment, "Ask yourself why a
qualified cardiologist is dishing out ad-hoc and generalised advice on
the internet." Jeez. Have we come to this? That Usenet is now a
platform exclusively for the unqualified and untrained? Whatever
happened to plain old folks helping folks?

In the 1990s Andrew Chung was saying some things on sci.med.cardiology
that got people's hackles up. In 1998 I wrote a defense, of a kind,
never having met the man, and not sharing his religious beliefs,
because it seemed that his detractors had lost perspective. But if that
was true then . . .

I dug out the 1998 post. Some of it still seems relevant, if a bit
pompous.

<BEGINNING QUOTE>
ANDREW CHUNG NEEDS NO ENDORSEMENT
11 August 1998

  "Tuning back into sci.med.cardiology after an absence,
  I was distressed to see that the thread of puerile
  attack on Andrew Chung's credentials had endured.

  "Andrew's credentials need no defense, for two reasons.
  First, they are impeccable. Second, the nature and
  beauty of Usenet is that it fosters uncredentialled
  (that is to say, egalitarian) discussion.

  "Initially I found it hard to imagine that anyone would
  take these destructive comments seriously. Reading on,
  however, it was apparent that some did: hence this
  reply, containing remarks that really don't need to be
  said.

  "Andrew's dedication and contribution to this group are
  unparalleled. His posts are invariably timely, to the
  point, logical, and scientifically sound. The service
  he provides is worthy of the greatest admiration.

  "I may sometimes disagree with his conclusions, and
  he with mine, but when this happens, it is usually
  necessary for me to visit the library in order to
  justify my own views.  The spectrum of scientific
  cardiology provides plenty of room to accommodate
  cardiologists (and others) who disagree with one another.
  One of the best things about sci.med.cardiology has
  been the cooperative spirit of intellectual inquiry
  that has characterized the group. This has recently
  taken a bit of a battering, but should emerge intact.

  "In this open forum, credentials are (or should be) of
  only peripheral concern.  I write 'cardiologist' after
  my name to provide others with a shortcut perspective,
  but I don't expect anyone to accept my unreferenced
  remarks unless it happens to suit them.  The price one
  pays for free and open access to the knowledge and
  experience of others is a certain amount of tolerance
  for variations in quality. Ideally we would all support
  our responses with citations from the scientific
  literature. Time constraints make this extremely
  difficult, but the enthusiastic participation of people
  from varied backgrounds and training usually provides
  ample opportunity to test, in one way or another, the
  usefulness of the opinions given.

  "There are many places to obtain a credentialled opinion,
  but Usenet, fortunately, is not one of them.
  Ask Semmelweis, whose credentialled superiors destroyed
  his program that reduced maternal mortality in childbirth
  by a factor of 10, from 20% to under 2%, using the
  ridiculous technique of handwashing. Ask the cardiology
  faculty of the University of California at Davis, where
  the highly-credentialled cardiac surgeons pressed on with a
  death rate 10 times the national average until publicity
  forced closure of the entire surgery program.
  Ask the families of the dozens of babies who died
  unnecessarily in Bristol, UK, because the incompetent
  but credentialled pediatric cardiac surgeons were
  sufficiently powerful to prevent intervention in their
  program despite death rates up to 50% when the national
  average was 3-4%.

  "Credentials have their value, but the people who write the
  best textbooks aren't always those you'd want to operate
  on your child. Sci.med.cardiology offers a complementary
  approach that may ultimately prove of equal value for
  many people."
<END OF QUOTE>

For those disposed to look into these things, my posts to
sci.med.cardiology in the 1990s show up in a Google search on my email
address. Some of those still seem relevant too.

David Rollo
Cardiologist, Melbourne Australia