Attention Canadian Forum Users:

Please welcome our newest official, HealthCanadaProgAdmin, which is the Program Administrator for Health Canada. As with all officials on ValueMD, HealthCanadaProgAdmin is participating on this forum on a voluntary basis to provide official information for our users.

Realizing this, please show this Official, and other Officials and even regular users and guests for that matter, the proper respect deserved, regardless of whether or not you agree with any particular policies of the Government/School represented. This site is for the exchange of helpful information regarding medical education.....not for political debates. And the Officials are here to provide existing official information....not to debate policies or discuss politics. Despite your potential differences in views, I'm sure most users can see the benefit of having Official representatives available to provide valuable information. So please do not jeopardize that benefit of all users for your own personal agenda, because that behavior will simply not be tolerated.

On behalf of ValueMD and its users, I want to thank the officials, such as HealthCanadaProgAdmin, for taking the time to answer our questions. And of course, thanks to all the users for participating on the site.

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Doc
Site Administrator

cool

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you never know what you can become........

Just a couple of comments with respect to your introduction.

I agree that it is helpful to be able to receive official information on this site. Is this information as binding as if I had received it from a specific governing body or office itself?

I would also think that this is an ideal forum to collect opinions, input and feedback from the very same folks that HealthCanada is trying to woo back to Canada (rather than seeing us and their own grads flock to the States).

I understand the purpose of this forum to be just what you stated that it cannot be: a space for intelligent dialogue and the exchange of opinions. So, we can no longer offer opinions on HealthCanada now that some administrative official has decided to grace us with their presence?

Hmmmm.

S-

Peacefuljourney:

I apologize for writing a confusing introduction. I unfortuantely mixed the introduction with a response to a particular individual who has used a less than respectful form of dialouge in the past when addressing users and Officials alike. The message may have been misinterpreted as a result. So let me try to elaborate.

To answer your question, it is my understanding that the Officials on this site provide official information from their respective sources. But you can ask the Officials themselves to clarify this particular issue if you wish.

As far as opinions being expressed, I did not mean to imply that this should not be done. In fact, that is what this site is all about. I meant to say that this should be done in a respectful manner and in accordance with the TOS. For example, to address an Official (or even a regular user for that matter) with statements like "...get real lady....you're a liar.....trying to screw people...", etc, is not acceptable for obvious reasons. I'm sure these same points can be made in a more acceptable manner .

A common misconception about Officials on this site is apparent with users submitting their complaints to them regarding the respective organizations they represent in the hopes of affecting future policy changes. This is not the proper channel for conducting such business. The Officials are primarily here to provide accurate official information to assist the users, and not here to collect user feedback/comments (although the site itself is primarily for this purpose). Your feedback and comments are of course very welcome, but they don't necessarily need to be addressed to the Officials. Share the majority of opinions amongst each other, and separately correspond with the Officials regarding official information. If the Officials would like to clarify a point during one of the unrelated discussions amongst users, I'm sure they will selectively join those discussions freely, but should not be expected to do so.

To give an analogy, a person wouldn't call the main number of the ECFMG (organization who oversees the USMLE exam for foreign medical students) to complain about how difficult the questions are, the unfair political views regarding foreign medical students, the outrageous price of the exam, etc. But they might call to ask for official information regarding testing accomodations, testing locations, available dates, pricing info, etc. While the feedbacks and comments are welcome by the ECFMG, there are proper routes to take and the general information number is not one of them . I would imagine there are probably feedback forms, etc.

Well the same is true here. I'm quite confident that Health Canada has a means for collecting feedback. But I doubt that phone calls or public forums are included in those means. Perhaps ask the Government Official what would be the best way to express your concerns to that organization and I'm sure s/he will direct you with that official information. But if you would like to provide your opinions to other users, by all means do so (within the TOS of course). Just don't expect the Officials to participate in those discussions since they may not be related to their primary purpose of providing official information (but they are free to particpate if they wish).

A good example can be seen with the California and Texas Medical Board representatives on the site. There are many discussions/comments/complaints/opinions on the site regarding the policies of those organizations. The Government Officials occassionally make comments or provide official information. But it never gets personal or disrespectful. Other examples can be seen in the many school fora with participating School Officials. User opinions of the schools are constantly being discussed in those fora. But at the same time, a certain level of common respect is maintained when addressing the Officials (and users). These are good examples of how things should be done in order to find a good balance between the participation of Officials and the discussions of users. The combination of these two sources of information is what makes ValueMD so useful, at least that is my view based on user feedback.

I hope this helps clarify some things, but let me know if you still have any questions or concerns and I'll try to elaborate further.

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Doc
Site Administrator