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The description of the given site at the moment:

Proposed Q&A site for medical students, residents, researchers, and academics

Residents refers to many things. I want that the description is clearer. People in Commonwealth countries, like Dori in a deleted question of mine about the given topic, understand that the word refers to a resident physician. Most of the people are outside of Commonwealth countries. So they like me understand that the word refers probably at least to Resident, a person who maintains residency (domicile) in a given place i.e. to every people.

The given misunderstanding caused by the cultural difference has caused many off-topic questions in the SE site Medicine, since people think they can ask anything there. One of the examples of the private questions:

It hurts when I pee. Do I have AIDS?

I propose that you stop the use of the word residents alone in the given site.

The name of the SE site implies that it is for all people in the world owning different cultural heritages. So it is a general site so please make the description or name of the site more exact and clearer.

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I find it very hard to believe that anyone else would read medical students, residents, researchers, and academics and think "This site is for people who live places!" In context it's quite obviously for medical residents, and if someone doesn't know what a "medical resident" is Google is quite helpful. – Matthew Read Sep 26 '11 at 20:18
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@MatthewRead: Your comment is exaggerative. You are assuming that every people, even people outside US and UK, know what resident in the site Medicine mean. I can find at least one person whose native language is English, not UK and not US, that know the given word exactly imply to medical residents. So your clause is false. - I proposed above that we should investigate it. - Some words have many meanings and sometimes the meaning of the word change when you move to a different area. – Masi Sep 26 '11 at 23:35
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No, I did not make that assumption. Let me rephrase. In context, the description is "medical students, medical residents, medical researchers, and medical academics". Ignoring the conext and assuming that residents refers to people who merely reside somewhere is entirely absurd. What do they have to do with anything? Why you make that assumption and then not assume the site is open to non-medical researchers and academics? If "medical residents" is unfamiliar and therefore incongruous, the rational thing to do is look it up. Not to ignore the incongruity and proceed merrily. – Matthew Read Sep 27 '11 at 4:35
I agree with Matthew. I live in a country where English is a third language for most people, and most of them will understand "resident" as "medical resident" if they speak English at all. By the way, the same argument can be applied to "researchers" and "academics" as well: it's clear the adjective "medical" is implied. Otherwise "residents, researchers and academics" would comprise 99% of the world population. – stevenvh Jan 15 at 17:05

1 Answer

up vote 3 down vote accepted

"Resident" in the context of a medical site, means resident physician to me as well - especially when its sandwiched between other academic positions. For geographical reference, I'm in the United States.

Something else to keep in mind: The community needs to define off-topic questions as well as on-topic ones, to figure out what it is we're there to ask and answer about. As such, people - including myself - will seed things like your quoted question expressly because it doesn't belong on the site, not because there's some sort of cultural confusion.

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Yes, I will seed question like mine to make the SE site more clearer to reach the beta phase. - There is a danger that such questions like the excellent seeded one come there more. - It should be made clear that the site is run by amateur researches, not by professional doctors. The researches cannot take the legal response of the causes which they may create by their answers. - - The description of the site should also emphasize that the site does not take any legal obligations or consequences caused by the given answers to the given person who exercised the piece of advice. – Masi Sep 26 '11 at 23:28
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First, adding a disclaimer to the site is a different question entirely than what do we mean by "Resident". Secondly, you're assuming two incorrect things about the nature of the proposal. That it's for medical advice given to a patient, which given the "who is this for" isn't true, and that the site is run by amateur researchers - there's no reason to believe the site won't also be frequented by MDs or professional researchers like myself. – EpiGrad Sep 26 '11 at 23:48
My current country's law forbids official doctors using such internet pages in giving official pieces of advice to patients. - It is a legal issue to use the word amateur in the contexts where may be patients asking help although one is MD or PhD or official doctor. - - It is a legal issue. - - If you are calling yourself professional researcher and giving advices to patients in the context of medicine, you are breaking the law in many countries. - - Such a site cannot take responsibilities of such users. – Masi Sep 28 '11 at 20:05
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Then the distinction you need to make is about official advice, which several other questions about the proposal have already discussed. Your semantic issues with "amateur" and "resident" aren't the site's fault, to be blunt. You've simply misused both words. – EpiGrad Sep 28 '11 at 23:03
I accept the given answer because it is at the definition phase difficult to say which description is best for the site, since we have not even reached the beta phase to get necessary data. – Masi Sep 30 '11 at 10:25

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