AI editorial policy

Why we tell you this

Health information changes what people do about their own bodies and their family’s. You have a right to know how what you are reading was made, so you can decide how much weight to give it.

Saying nothing would be easier, and it would be wrong.

Where AI is used

• Finding the questions people ask. AI tools help find what patients and families actually search for and group those questions into topics. Questions heard in clinic are also used, because the way a parent really asks something is better than a guess.
• Gathering sources. Sources are collected from medical textbooks, published research and clinical guidance, and from Philippine sources for things that are different here, such as PhilHealth and where care is available.
• Writing a first draft. A first draft is written from those sources, not from what an AI model “remembers”. The limits below explain how that is enforced.
• Checking the draft. A separate AI model checks the draft against its sources before the physician reads it.
• Illustrations. The illustrations and photograph-style images in articles are made with an AI image model.

What the tools may not do

• No medical claim from memory. Every medical statement in an article must be tied to an exact quoted passage from a source that was actually retrieved. If no passage supports it, the statement is rewritten to match what the source says, or it is taken out. A section with no supporting sources is not written at all.
• No made-up numbers. Costs, coverage and figures change and differ from hospital to hospital. Where there is no reliable current source, an article tells you what to ask and whom to ask instead of printing a number.
• No personal advice. Articles explain; they do not tell any one reader what to do about their own case.
• Nothing publishes itself. No automated step can approve an article. That decision belongs to the physician alone.

How drafts are checked

The checking model is kept apart from the one that wrote the draft. For each medical statement, it is shown only the statement and the quoted passage behind it. It is not shown:

• the article
• the outline
• the reasoning that went into the sentence

It is asked one question: does this passage support this statement?

Separately, two more checks are run:

• the quoted passages are checked word for word against the sources they came from
• older sources are checked for newer guidance that replaces them

Keeping the checker apart is the point. Whatever made a sentence seem right when it was written is exactly what should not be available when it is judged.

Anything the check finds is marked for the physician. Where a finding is fixed, the fix is marked too, so he can see what changed.

What the physician checks

Before an article is published, Louie Leonides M. Gayao, MD reads it in full, together with everything the checking step 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 education rather than advice

He also checks every anatomical drawing. A drawing that is confidently wrong is harder for a reader to catch than a wrong sentence.

An article is published only when he approves it. If he is not satisfied, it is revised and read again, or it is not published.

About the images

• The people in generated images are not real. Where an image shows a parent, a child, a hand or a consultation room, nobody in it is a patient and nobody in it exists. No patient’s photograph or information was used to make it.
• They explain; they do not document. A generated figure illustrates a point. It is not a picture of anyone’s anatomy, scan or operation, and it is not a picture of what your own result will look like.
• The featured image at the top of an article carries no text. Labels belong only in diagrams inside the article, where they can be read and checked.

The image use page explains how the illustrations are made and the terms for using them.

What this does not change

Reading this site is not a consultation, and it does not make you a patient. An article, however carefully checked, cannot examine you.

If you or someone in your family has symptoms, please magpatingin. The medical disclaimer says more.

If you want your own situation looked at, please book a consultation.

If you find something wrong

Checking lowers the chance of a mistake; it does not remove it. Reports are read, and corrections are a normal part of publishing, not something to hide.