I've noticed some people on PetQnA.com that claim to be DVM's but offer generally bad/uneducated advice.
I think that if you're going to claim the title you should state your credentials (since veterinarians have to be licensed).
Does anyone else agree with this?
I saw one person claiming to be a 'Veterinarian' and then noted that their profile stated they were working on their first Associate's degree in Business/Marketing.
Anyone else get annoyed by things like this?
Answers:
Absolutely! I actually confronted one of those people privately (through email) and they never posted again. But there's one frequenting the boards regularly now. It drives me nuts! I just read an answer from a person that's been claiming to be a vet in Australia for quite some time now. In previous answers they claimed to be a yank working in Aus, now they are claiming to be an Aussie. What I don't get is why anyone would want to make such an irresponsible claim. I really wish there were some way to call this person on it and make them stop before their bad advice hurts some poor pet! I asked a question yesterday http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;... that a vet could be very helpful with. I notice the person I am referring to hasn't answered it. That pretty much removes all doubt I had.
I'm annoyed by dishonesty period, but especially when someone is trying to give specialized advice that can impact a creatures health and life...
Not only is it unethical, it's probably illegal.
Many times you read posts here that are so obviously from younger kids, frightened about their pet's health, or young adults with limited funds that have to make decisions about an animal's future based on financial considerations. It's heartbreaking enough without being exploited by people looking to play games.
Nevertheless, here's best advice I ever received about taking advice offered on the Internet: retain a healthy degree of skepticism and check out any answers offered with other sources.
Everything else, take with that proverbial grain of salt.
I wish they would give their license number. We all need to be careful here. Lots of liars out there. Absolutely agree with you.
Yes...a lot of people are able to see threw the posers and not take their advice .but there are people that believe in what they say .. a lot of first time pet owners are just trying to get some advice ...to all those people who are posing as a Vet you are not helping people who are trying to do the best thing for their pets by asking for advice. Some of the advice you are giving and not knowing the true facts are actually going to hurt pets if applied as you say.
It more than annoys me. I think its terrible that these people, in an effort to make themselves feel superior, are giving bad advice to the innocent and unsuspecting. I think they should be reported to the authorities.
It is a crime to purvey oneself as a doctor (human or animal) and provide medical advice, even over the internet, when this is not the case.
I agree completely and yes it bothers me. People come on here looking for good, sound advice. Only the animals suffer when this happens. It is sad.
maybe they find it easy to pretend to be a DVM. it's good that it would be easy to spot them just by seeing their bad and uneducated advice. or they could've only been educated a bit.
It is disappointing that people have to pretend to be something they aren't. The internet is full of that type of thing.
It is VERY doubtful any reputable DVM would sit on here regularly and answer questions for free. They would be concentrating on developing their education, expanding their careers where it counts and more importantly helping animals you would think! Also if they do venture online, they would be focusing on writing helpful articles, hopefully on their own website they create to educate the general public at large.
Then people like us that have a great interest and love in animals without the 6 year+ credentials can research what they write and reference it to give folks that need genuine help a clue about how to care for their animals or an animal they found that is in trouble.
I think I've seen that person too reference they were a vet. Funny though how they don't seem to know how to capitalize or punctuate anything.
I don't think PetQnA.com is the best place there is to get a qualified answer to a question regarding animal health. So I don't believe you should have to put credentials in your title or your experience if you don't want to. This is a place where you go to get an opinion on something with anecdotal evidence and perhaps a website to back it up. This is my opinion.
I get VERY annoyed with it! I generally don't believe it when a person puts that just because I cant see their degree. I know that some of these "vets" suggestions are totally bogus, and contradict what my professors say. I'd take my professors word over these so called "vets" because I can actually see their Ph.d.
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