Editorial and review process

Who is responsible

Articles are published under the name of Louie Leonides M. Gayao, MD, a neurosurgeon practising in the Philippines. He reads and approves each article before it is published.

His practice sees patients of every age, from newborns to the elderly. The articles are written for them and for the families who look after them.

AI tools help with research and drafting. Where they are used, and what they are not allowed to do, is explained in the AI editorial policy. The tools help; they do not decide.

How a topic is chosen

Topics start from what people actually ask:

• questions heard in clinic
• questions sent to the practice
• what people type into search engines

Questions from consultations carry the most weight, because they are the ones no search tool can show until a page exists to answer them.

One article answers one main question. When people ask the same thing in different words, those questions become sections of one article instead of several thin pages that repeat each other.

Some things are the same whatever the illness, such as how to ask for help with hospital bills. They get one page of their own, and other articles link to it.

Where the information comes from

Sources are gathered before anything is written, in this order:

1. Medical textbooks, for settled knowledge.
2. Published research and clinical guidelines, for what textbooks have not yet caught up with.
3. Philippine sources, for what is different here, such as PhilHealth, government programmes and where care is available. A Philippine question needs a Philippine source; a foreign one does not answer it.

Information is looked up and retrieved. It is never written from memory, whether a person’s or a machine’s.

How an article is written

• Evidence before writing. Every medical statement is tied to an exact passage, quoted word for word from a source that was actually opened. If no passage supports a statement, it is not written. If a whole section has no supporting source, that section is left out.
• The patient’s order, not the textbook’s. An article follows the questions a patient or family asks, in the order they ask them: what is this, is it dangerous, what is done about it, what happens after. Warning signs that mean you should not wait come near the top.
• The answer first. Each article answers its main question in its opening lines. Each section answers its own heading straight away.
• Plain language. Articles are written in the English Filipino families use. Where a family would use a Filipino word, that word is used, with the medical term beside it.
• For referring doctors too. Where it helps, an article has a section further down for physicians who may be referring a patient. It is part of the same article, not a separate one.
• References you can check. The sources behind an article are listed at the end, so you can read them yourself.

How an article is checked

Checking happens in stages, and each one looks for a different kind of mistake.

• The quotes are real. Every quoted passage is compared word for word against the source it came from.
• The quote supports the sentence. A separate checker is shown only a statement and the passage behind it, not the rest of the article and not the reasoning behind it. It is asked whether the passage really supports the statement. Keeping it apart from the writing is deliberate: whatever made a sentence seem right while it was being written should not be there when it is judged.
• The source is still current. Older sources are checked for newer guidance that has replaced them.
• The reader’s questions are answered. The draft is read the way a worried parent, a patient or a doubtful reader would read it, looking only for questions it leaves unanswered and words it does not explain.

Anything these checks find is marked for the physician. Fixes are marked too, so he can see exactly what changed.

Who signs it off

Before any article is published, Louie Leonides M. Gayao, MD reads it in full, with everything the checks found. He decides every point that needs medical judgement:

• whether a statement is accurate
• whether a source is the right one
• whether the article stays on the side of explaining rather than advising any one reader

He also checks the images, including every anatomical drawing.

He can approve an article, send it back for revision, or reject it. No automated step can approve or publish an article. If he is not satisfied, it is not published.

What we will not publish

• A medical statement stronger than its source supports. “Can cause” is often the honest form of “causes”.
• A claim about how common something is, without a source that measured it.
• Prices, PhilHealth coverage figures or hospital charges without a current, reliable source. These differ from hospital to hospital and change over time; where no such source exists, an article tells you what to ask and whom to ask instead.
• Anything that reads as a diagnosis or a treatment plan for an individual reader.

Independence

Articles are not sponsored, and no company pays to be mentioned or placed on this site. Where a hospital, a medicine or a device is named, it is because it answers the reader’s question.

If that ever changes, it will be said plainly on the page where it applies.

Keeping articles current

Medical knowledge changes, and articles are reviewed again over time.

• An article’s review date is the date the physician last approved it.
• When an article is corrected, it goes back through his review.
• The date changes only when he has approved it again. A date is never refreshed without that review.

If you find a mistake

Checking lowers the chance of a mistake; it does not remove it.

This site explains; it cannot examine you, and reading it does not make you a patient. The medical disclaimer says more.