01
Why this site exists
Surgery is one of the few decisions where the person advising you is often paid for the answer being
yes, and where the patient has the least ability to judge. Fear does the rest of the work: told that
something could become serious, most people agree quickly and ask nothing.
The result is that patients go into operations without knowing three things they are entitled to know.
Whether the operation is genuinely necessary. Whether it has to happen now, or whether there is time to
think and get another opinion. And what the alternatives are, including doing nothing and watching.
Every page in the library is built to answer those three questions in that order.
02
How it is paid for, and what that rules out
There is no advertising, no sponsored content, no affiliate arrangement, no booking commission, and no
paid placement of any kind. No hospital can buy a mention, buy a better mention, or buy the removal of
anything. We do not arrange treatment, take referral fees, or negotiate between patients and hospitals,
because the moment money moves with a patient, the writing stops being trustworthy.
The one paid programme on the site is hospital certification, and it is deliberately built so the
result cannot be bought: the score comes from a random sample of patients we draw ourselves, the fee
buys the survey rather than the outcome, and below 90% nothing is published at all.
How certification works.
03
Why no hospital or doctor is ever named
Not one page on this site names a facility or a clinician, in either direction. No praise and no
blame. This is not timidity; it is what keeps the site useful.
A site that names good doctors becomes a marketing channel, and marketing channels get gamed by
whoever spends the most, which is exactly the problem this site was built against. A site that names
bad ones becomes a defamation case and stops publishing. Naming also identifies the patient: a
procedure, a date and a place together can single out one person. So patient experiences are published
as patterns, and the useful part is preserved without the identifying part.
04
Who writes it, and who checks it
Clinical content is drawn from peer-reviewed journals, randomised trials, systematic reviews, specialty
society guidelines and national health authorities, and every page carries its own reference list with
the publisher, the year and a link. Where evidence is genuinely contested we say so rather than picking
the more convenient side. Read the editorial method.
Doctors can apply to contribute safety tips, and are verified by hand against their own medical
register before anything they write carries a badge. Any register in any country is accepted. They may
not name their practice, their fees or their location, and nothing reading as advertising is published,
verified or not. Apply as a contributor.
05
What we hold about you, and what we refuse to hold
We ask a patient for exactly one document -- a discharge summary or a bill -- because an unverified
surgery story cannot be published safely, and for nothing beyond it. No prescriptions, no scans, no
reports, no ID proof. That document is opened once to confirm the operation happened and is then locked
forever: it names a hospital, and this site does not publish hospital names, so there is no setting that
can make it public.
Nothing you upload has a web address; files are sent only after a fresh permission check, so a link is
never a key. The location and device data buried in a phone photo is stripped before the file is written
to disk rather than when it is shown, so we never hold it. Photographs are approved one at a time, and
submissions do not ask for a hospital, a city or a date. Email addresses, phone numbers and links are
stripped before storage rather than before display.
Nothing a patient writes appears until a moderator has read it, anonymous posting is the default and
sending proof does not change it, and you can ask us to delete your submission or a single photograph at
any time. Read the security rules.
06
This is education, not medical advice
Nothing here can examine you, see your reports or know your history. Every page is written to make you
better at the conversation with the doctor who can do those things, not to replace them. The decision
is always between you and your treating clinician.
If a page misstates the evidence, cites something incorrectly, or has fallen behind a revised
guideline, write to us with the source. We correct it and update the page date.
Corrections: hello@safesurgispace.com
