Picard, I agree to the extent that the behavior of *some* individual members warrants skepticism. But this is different than the sweeping condemnations and grouping of all reports negative as supposed truths, and assumptions that anything positive posted about St. Chris is part of a conspiracy.

More below.

Much of this is non-unique. None of the Australian schools reveal res placements or opportunities for foreign (i.e., outside of US) electives, however if it is the case that there's no information even on *in-house* rotations, this should be used to remind prospective students of the inherent risks involved, not to claim conspiracy (between forum members and school administration).
Apologies for my skepticism, but I can't rely on that sort of hearsay. Are there examples you can point me to, made by forum members that we are *assured* are indeed St. Chris students? There are many trolls on this site (and SDN), so I wouldn't be at all surprised if at this point some are posing as St. Chris students. This skepticism should exist and has been brought upon by the behavior of the detractors.
Not posting names of implicated 3rd parties is forum-wide policy. You can't blame St. Chris or bts for this.
This is always quickly corrected, and a point-of-clarification is all it takes. But in fact, the school is a UK school, in that it resides in the UK. When a post claimed that the GMC recognized the school, which it does to the extent that it recognizes its WHO charter, that was also quickly clarified by others. Sloppy wording, yes, but these claims on the whole have been technically/literally true.
Then that particular post/member should be fingered and hounded, until evidence is given or they can be discredited (e.g., they continue to visit the forum, but don't reply to such multiple requests).
Then assume they don't exist, but not all that important for licensure -- The Australian and UK schools for the most part don't have formal affiliations. This does make it a bit harder for getting foreign electives (i.e., the students have to do their own leg-work), but not for licensure per se, and shouldn't be singled out as part of something nefarious or misleading.
This (and the first one above) is the most damaging to SC. Who made the original statement? At any rate, please separate individual posts/members from "SC" in general, as conspiracy is far more sensational and is unsubstantiated.

I think it's a vicious cycle, with the possibility of agitators (trolls) making things sound worse than they actually are. All it takes is one or two to cause people to erroneously assume it's an institutional problem.

But whether or not St. Chris does mislead with posts from conspiring forum members, the attackers of St. Chris don't have much cred due to lack of decorum. Every thread I HAVE seen in the past year (a lot, but I acknowledge I have not seen them all), I have seen major flaws with the attacks -- misquoting, unsubstantiation, wild accusations, cartoons & other allusions, etc.

What I take issue with is when ppl attack the arguers rather than the arguments, or non-sensically make sweeping generalizations based off of very little substantiation (in a forum where even determining the source is difficult), attacking any positive statement, not internally, but b.c. they come from what is perceived as some general "group" of people who make positive statements!

-pitman

Mr. Pittman: how does SC repair itself?

az skeptic

Pitman,

1) First of all, there is a big difference between real "local medical schools" such as schools in Australia/real UK schools vs "off shore schools" that cater to Americans when it comes to licensing laws. This is why formal affiliations may not be important to UK/Australia/Irish schools because in the eyes of US boards, these are local "domicile" medical schools with its own clinical teaching facilities. Off shore schools, with a few exceptions, do not have their own clinical facilities, thus the importance of "formal affiliation agreements" in licensure.

2) Professor names -- there was a great debate over this a while ago. And I think the moderator group/Doc have concurred that professors names are NOT private. Posting professors e-mail adresses/phone/street address IS a violation of privacy policy... but saying Profesor XYZ teaches XYZ at XYZ university is NOT a privacy violation. Professors/school admins are public figures, and posting professors name from a school is acceptable, and commonly done in other forums here on valuemd. Saying otherwise is like saying we cannot post "Collin Powell is the Secretary of the State for the United States." Or, "Mike Corona is te Sheriff of Orange County." Or, "Dr. Feeney is an Attending Physician at Highland General Hospital." These are PUBLIC INFORMATION, which SC has chosen to hide... makes you wonder why? SC is a school, not a mob family. Professor names are not secrets.

3) Personal attacks -- Several PM's from the user "Futrphysician" were posted publically here not too long ago. Their content/existances were not disputed by futrphysician itself (except for more public personal attacks" ... And "futrphysician" is a not only a current SC student, but also a "class rep," acknowldged by both himself and the moderators.

4) Ivy League claim -- well, this was made by SC's very own moderator. To date, no proof has been offered. The reason given by SC is to prevent students from other schools to "pretend" to be SC students and request rotations there... ridiculous.

5) 48 state claim originated from the SC site, perpetuated by the SC folks here, until challenged by "outsiders" Specific claims about NJ and Georgia was made by the moderator when both NJ and Georgia have yet to meet to decide the fate of SC. The moderator reluctantly retracted his NJ statement after much challenge.

6) UK stuff -- the "Private UK school" claim was retracted after much challenge. It is very obvious that SC-Luton is purchasing charter from Senegal to circumvent UK and US accreditation laws (the two countries most impacted by the existance of SC-Luton) Claims by the school/moderator about "humanitarian reasons" is ridiculous. SC-Senegal may be doing some "humanitarian" care in Senegal and receiving WHO/UN money... but what does that have to do with SC-Luton? What does SC-Luton contribute to "humanitarian" missions? SC-Luton charges one of the lowest tuition among the off shore schools, is located in one of the highest cost-of-operation locations of all off shore schools... do you truely believe that any portion of the tuition is used for "humanitarian aide?" If so, explain to us what they are using to pay their faculty, staff, hospital affiliations, future constructions, legal fees (as they claim to have set aside to fight licensing laws), electric bill, rent, NJ office operations.... etc. Again, these questions went unanswered.

7) Yes, there are folks on the forum that nitpick on insignificant things to fight over about SC... but if you set that aside and look carefully, you will see that majority of "significant" questions are either unanswered, or answered with misleading statements by moderators and known SC students on this forum... and the insignificant bickers tend to stem from these legitimate questions/debates...

Solution? Be truthful and honest about what SC is. Better yet, have SC admin come on here and answer some of the hard questions -- most other schools on this forum have "School Officials" that come on and answer significant questions in debate... and put these questions to rest once and for all. Otherwise, the controversy will continue... and they will only hurt SC in the long run.

P

Oh, and the Cartoons by Plasma... well, he is actually on the "pro-SC" side, who says he is joining SC next year... and who wants to "track me down." LOL.

P

__________________
Jean Luc Picard
Academic Hospitalist/Assist. Professor of Medicine, Star Fleet Medical, Earth, United Federation of Planets
Borg-Certified... Resistance is Futile.

In Glock, We Trust... Everyone Else... Keep Your Hands Where I Can See Them.

http://www.odmp.org/search.php?searc...=2001&cause=27
http://www.nypdangels.com/wtc.htm
http://www.hampsteadnh.us/police/A%2...ica%20Died.htm
http://longmontpolice.com/MEMORIAM.HTM

Agreed. If St. Chris neither reveals its in-house clinical facilities nor explains any affiliations, this is problematic, particularly b.c. it's not an established "local" school. I had thought the issue was just whether there were addtional, complementary affiliations. But, consider this possibility: that the school itself does have a (really stupid) policy preventing students from explaining their clinicals. While this looks bad for the school, it is (in theory) easily corrected, but more importantly, exonerates the student members on this point of contention. In fact in the past couple of hours I have received a message from a St. Chris student with info on clinicals. However, I cannot personally substantiate its contents, maybe they're unsubstantiable, and I do not know if it has not been posted here b.c. of a school policy, but there must be some agreeable way to reveal this stuff.
I thought that was only decided on SDN, but you're right again, at least in that their names *should* be up for grabs, as they are in the public light. There may be an issue of potential libel, but I'd like to get a reference to the official forum policy. If they're allowed, then I'd like a known St. Chris student member to explain their behavior.
Still hearsay so far. Another factor is the running thread that led to the purported attacks -- e.g., did you do something equally as bad to really piss him off. But a couple days ago I contacted a couple (presumably) St. Chris members telling them why it's so important for their cause to have even better decorum than their detractors (more on this in the following post).
bts should explain. He's usu. (from my experience) good at at least *trying* to be honest about the school -- for example, he's talked about some of the issues he's encountered at the school on SDN -- so I'm skeptical that he'd say this to be misleading. Note that probably a majority of ValueMD (and SDN) int'l forum members often choose poor wording. But again, there could be a (stupid) school policy that ties these guys' hands behind their backs, in which case the solution is to violate the school policy or to convince the school it's self-defeating.
If the site reports this, it's understandable that the students might believe this. If it's erroneous, someone should tell the school to not be so stupid.
Not sure what you mean by "retracted", but when ppl respond (as they have) that St. Chris is not a UK school in that it's not treated like EEA schools, no one is "fooled" into thinking otherwise.
Mmm. I'd keep the inferences down to a minimum -- assuming intent is tricky stuff, and UK laws for int'l grads is just changing this month. Either way, keep the actions/policies/intent of school admin separate from those of forum members. Where bts personally claims something, only he can answer, whereas if he or another student implicates school policy, he can't be expected to give a satisfactory answer.
Well, I'll give an old example to make a point: there was a huge issue over whether St. Chris was even WHO registered, anywhere, about a year ago (this may have been SDN, but I think also here). Bts and others delayed just a little bit in responding in the most efficient way -- giving a URL to show WHO registration -- and the thread had already taken off on a life of its own in different directions, implying, based off of a false report, that St. Chris. was in cahoots to defraud with a defunct (non-ACGME) US school, that the school was not "recognized" by any state, etc. All of the allegations were eventually shown pretty well to be false, but it was too late -- the following threads continued to make insinuations, and the St. Chris students were not 100% on top of addressing each one before they spawned more insinuations and unsubstantiated claims. As each new thread was made, trolls and mindless sheep would immediately jump in and attack, "Conspiracy!" "Fraud!" "Paid by SC!" "Blackmailed to tow the company line!" (both explicitly and...by insinuation), each time asserting that they had proven their last accusations which in turn relied on previous threads which seemed by their un-informed nature to be grounded in unsubstantiated claims of...nothing. Like a pack of dingos.

So, while you bring up/summarize serious issues, Picard, most of which need to be addressed, I don't think it's the case that the major current issues are these issues, but rather, I think the biggest issue is the knee-jerk accusations that many here and at SDN make of conspiracy, fraud, etc., that shape the tone of every thread about the school. Not until that stops can any real productive (cooperative) effort begin. Of course, this presumes that there are detractors other than trolls, those who do actually care about the truth on such issues.
Ya mon. Certainly the truth matters, as does decorum (all sides). But I doubt the school admin is going to come on, which means we have to figure this stuff out respectably ourselves.
*If* he's a future student and actually pro-SC as he may try to seem to be (in a twisted way), then he's not all that foresighted as he shoots himself in the foot. But don't assume he's what he purports to be.

-pitman

That's a tough one, as it's difficult to control the trolls. But I have a few suggestions that may help shape behavior:

1) Decorum/wording

SC students and affiliates need to be be *better* behaved than the detractors. No personal/character attacks, no allusions, no false inferences. Not until their behavior is un-reproachable can they expect others to do the same or to help "enforce" the same. Such will take away ammunition from the detractors, will remove some of the feelings that some people use to justify their attacks, and will probably lead to more conscientious people coming to SC's defense (at least on matters of decorum).

CONCEDE WHEN YOU ARE WRONG -- it's better to admit you're wrong (but try not to repeat the same mistake!) than to ignore counter-arguments or to make up non-sensical excuses for exposed contradictions.

Wording is even more important: be CAREFUL with everything you say, slow down to do so, so that you cannot be misinterpreted. Being thorough and clear supercedes being concise. IF you have tried to mislead in the past, REALIZE you will not get away with it, and any attempts to do so will be self-defeating.

DON'T MAKE CLAIMS YOU CAN'T SUBSTANTIATE, either by logic or via evidence, either now or if challenged. This sounds prohibitively burdensome, but it's value is HUGE and it's the mainstay of competitive debate.

Remember that this forum isn't about ego ("he violate me, so I gonna equally violate him") -- it's about helping prospective students get information and helping the school better itself. Can't be done if you stoop to another's level, no matter how good, or even *ethical*, it may feel. Take nothing personally, as if you're in a debate on a topic with which you have no vested interest. If you find it helpful, assume (or pretend) the other guy is merely inquiring about something, is playing a game, or is merely ignorant (rather than malicious).

2) Moderator

This will sound weird to those who are familiar with my posts, but the SC forum needs more moderator-imposed censorship. In fact, I think it's the ONLY int'l forum, both on ValueMD and SDN, that doesn't suffer from too much censorship.

ValueMD bans "abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-oriented or any other material that may violate any applicable laws".

If an unsubstantiated claim is repeatedly made, after the claim has been shown to be false, then members who post it should be warned.

Doc also has posted that personal insults are not acceptable:

http://www.valuemd.com/viewtopic.php?t=164

There's always the problem of slippery slope and ambiguity, but I think this forum should be clamped down b.c. of the problems. For example, claims of members belonging to an SC conspiracy should be asked to refrain from such accusations unless they qualify them with their reasons for the characterization (so those reasons can be DEBATED -- because otherwise the accusation is unfalsifyable and therefore undisputable).

Now, ValueMD's method of assigning moderators is a serious problem --
making a school's student their forum's moderator can help a forum/school to disseminate helpful information, but it is a detriment in a forum with much controversy/adversity -- bts is in a bind where whenever he posts, he could be seen as trying to dominate or bias the threads, or interpreted as a minion of the school, while it is all but impossible for him to impose sanctions. Just doesn't work, and he's better posting than being exiled as moderator. A non-vested moderator can not only threaten sanctions (if fairly) with a bit more impunity, but can moderate in other ways (e.g., "request", "suggest") that would appear as censorship only if an SC student were doing it. In other words, if you can, change the moderator to someone who won't get people worked up over potential conflicts of interest.

3) Address Picard's summary of the perceived current "issues". Wherever YOU have been implicated, YOU need to respond. But think carefully first, consider what the *issue* is (prior lack of response, lack of evidence, lack of clarity/understanding, bad school policy, etc.) and do what's called "line by line" argumentation -- address each point, in turn, one by one, and when arguing, explain its fallacy (or truth). Sum up with the big picture of what it means that you've countered or addressed each point.

4) Minimize the hearsay, quote others when you have to implicate them, and use references (to other posts and other sites) liberally, to keep the running history adequately cross-referenced, substantiated and traceable by those who do seek the truth (assuming you believe in what you're doing ).

5) Change policy or get around it -- if SC admin is preventing SC students from posting information deemed extremely important in the threads, either convince them of the importance of changing the policy for the livelihood of the school, or learn ways to skirt the policy without screwing yourself. In any case, non-SC should be made aware of such policies so that you personally are not implicated in any perceived "cover up". Students can change policy, it just takes smart and/or underground politics.

6) Make sure all SC student members are at least *aware* of the effect their posts could have on the school, for better or for worse.

I think these are all important, but #1 and #2 I'd say are absolutely necessary. Could be completely off-base though

-pitman

But I think Pitman made some excellent and very helpful points. I think the St. Chris admin should jump on this.