Should Medical Spa MD be physicians only?

During an email exchange on a completely different subject with a long time Medical Spa MD Member, he hit me with his opinion that at least a part of Medspa MD should be reserved exclusively for physicians.

Here's parts from two of his emails and some of my response.

Jeff,
...I would recommend an area for physicians only and you need to prove who you are. Leave the comments open to the public but only the physician members can post comments...

The site has lost its appeal to the physicians to a large degree because there is no where for them to converse now that there are many nurses, aestheticians, salesman and patients on the site. It really was doing its best when it was mostly physicians talking back and forth about technology and techniques.

This is part of my emailed response.

Hi L,

Your reply hits on something I've been thinking about for some time, but have some reservations. It is possible to password protect areas of the site but very difficult to able to force people to actually 'prove' who they are.

I"m guessing from the tone of your post that you feel that the 'quality' of the site has been diluted with non-physician posts asking questions about their age spots etc. I somewhat agree but it's a challenging situation. I'd be interested in what you think might be a possible (and feasible) solution.

I could make some/most/all of the forums login only. This would require an account but I could not insure that everyone was who they say they are. This also goes against one of the factors that has makes the site actually attractive. My guess is that you might think twice about posting under your actual name since this could potentially cause you problems if you wanted to say something important about someone who might identify you.

I could make part of the site a paid memebership site. This would allow me to identify individuals though they wouldn't have to use their real name. This seems like a potential solution. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. Would you pay a fee to have access to a community where you felt you could exchange information with other docs that were also paying members

Certainly I've always valued your opinion on this. Hope you're well
Jeff

Since I launched Medspa MD back in 2000-whatever (It was called Medical Spas Online then.), I've changed the site to reflect what I thought was the best value for physicians. There are plenty of places where patients can go and get advice, but Medical Spa MD has been the only site where physicians can discuss the back end of what they need and do with each other. I want to continue to be respectful of that and not become one of the myriad of consumer facing sites. Besides, we're building a platform now that will allow that kind of patient/physician interaction outside of this site.

If you're a physician I'm really interested in what you think about this. Should there be a physicians only area where you're identified? Are you concerned that their are impostors on the site? (I've outed a number of them before.) Would you be willing to login in order to post or get content? Should PAs and NPs have access? If you're a physician, how would you like this site to be structured?

Please leave a comment, contact me directly via the contact form or just email me