Posted by Dr. Bob on July 15, 2000, at 0:18:26
In reply to Credentials Questions (continued), posted by Oddzilla on July 14, 2000, at 8:20:46
> If a person wishes to claim to be a doctor, is there anything to stop him? Does the disclaimer at the top remove liability for anyone who wishes to represent himself as a board certified psychiatrist (as Toby did) ?
The short answer is no, there's nothing to stop him.
And if someone's not a doctor, you probably can't sue them for malpractice. But you should be able to charge them with practicing medicine without a license -- or with fraud.
> If a person wishes to be helpful without being willing to verify his credentials perhaps he should not post any claim to them?
I see this as an issue of regulation vs. education. You can try to control (regulate) what people are exposed to, or you can let them be exposed and try to teach (educate) them regarding what to do with it. The former is a little too paternalistic for me, so my philosophy is to warn people not to believe everything they hear. For a few links on the topic of quality of information, see:
http://www.dr-bob.org/quality.html
Bob
poster:Dr. Bob
thread:40413
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000708/msgs/40494.html