Medscape, one of the most visited online health sites, offers professional web pages to health care "physicians." But when a New York doctor of chiropractic recently tried to take advantage of the free service, he was denied on the basis that he wasn't a "physician."
Dynamic Chiropractic contacted Medscape for comment. Ed Staunton, senior project manager for Medscape's new product development group, phoned DC to explain his company's position:
Medscape encourages physicians, allied health professionals and consumers to take advantage of the wealth of free information and tools on both of our primary sites, Medscape.com and CBSHealthWatch. Our professional member registration form includes a place for chiropractors to list their profession. Within Medscape.com there are 30 different specialty sites, along with customized information directed to health professionals. A good deal of this information should be of interest to chiropractors, including a Medscape orthopedic specialty site that is rich with content and features. The free physician websites created by Medscape for medical practices across the United States are for physicians only, and we have no plans to make them available to others in the health care field at this time.
Medscape's policy should come as no surprise. Its editor-in-chief is George Lundberg, MD, former editor of the
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Medscape is not the only major health website to treat doctors of chiropractic and other alternative care providers differently than medical doctors, they are just the most forthright. To its credit, Medscape was the only major health website to respond about exclusionary policies.
