Statement of Purpose

The primary purpose of eRadius.com is
Education

eRadius.com, the International Distal Radius Fracture Study Group website, is an academic, non-commercial website that was founded in 1999 and serves as a unique forum for information interchange among surgeons interested in distal radius fractures. The site has commercial sponsors to help cover the costs of designing, running, and maintaining the site, but the sponsors have no input whatever as to content, which is solely based on input from the Editorial Board and the site owner, David L. Nelson, MD. This is similar to the struture of all Journals, which are supported by the advertising but whose content is entirely determined by the Editorial Board. The site is non-commercial in that the site does not sell anything and does not promote any specific brand of product.

The website is an outgrowth of international conferences focused on distal radius fractures, held in San Francisco in 1992, 1994, and 1998. Many of the members of the Editorial Board have been faculty at these conferences.

Editorial Board

eRadius is in the process of assembling a new Editorial Board. The following surgeons were members of the original Editorial Board in 1999. They volunteered to submit cases for presentation and to review cases. All case presentation material were signed by the submitting surgeon. The opinions expressed are their own, and may not reflect the opinions of other members of the Editorial Board.

Corresponding Editors

The website is open to all surgeons and health care professionals. Patients can visit, but please note that the website is designed for surgeons, not patients. It has been written for surgeons, not patients. Patients will probably find their questions are better answered by other webpages or websites maintained by Dr. Nelson.

The website's primary goal is education. Commercial sponsorship is required, just as in peer-reviewed journals, in order to cover the cost of establishing and running the website. All of the faculty have complete and total academic freedom in the selection and presentation of their cases. Any potential conflict of interest will be noted in their biography. The commercial sponsors are noted only to document their participation; no endorsement of the product is implied. Hyperlinks to their websites are provided as a convenience to the membership, not a has an endorsement of the product.

David L. Nelson, M.D., is the site owner, founder, and site administrator. He is Board Certified in Orthopedics and has a Certificate of Added Qualifications in Surgery of the Hand. He formerly was the head of Hand Surgery for the University of California, San Francisco and now is in private practice in Marin, California. He is the Director of the San Francisco Bay Area Hand Club, an Consulting Editor for the Journal of Hand Surgery, a member of the FDA Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Devices Advisory Panel, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Internet Society for Orthopedic Surgery and Trauma. He has designed two devices for the treatment of distal radius fractures that have been approved by the FDA. He has lectured nationally and internationally on the topic.

Site Policies

SITE NOT FOR PATIENTS This site is not for patient education and patients are advised to review this page. Patients are advised to seek professional advice, since information alone is not knowledge. You deserve the best of care, and you cannot do it without the care of an orthopedic surgeon. You can find a Board-Certified Orthopedic Surgeon near you by clicking on this link and then click on the "Find An Orthopedist" link (at the top right, just above the blue bar), or you can find a Board-Certified Hand Surgeon by clicking on this link and clicking on the "Find a Hand Surgeon" link, which is on the left, the top orange navigation link.

ETHICAL STANDARDS FOR MEDICAL INTERNET PUBLISHING This website conforms to the ethical standards for medical internet publishing that have been established by the American Medical Association and the HON (Health on the Net Foundation). These core standards include:

• Authorship: Authors and contributors, their affiliations, and
  relevant credentials should be provided. Editorial Boards should be identified.
• Attribution: References and sources for all content should be listed clearly, and all relevant copyright information noted.
• Disclosure: Web site "ownership" should be prominently and fully disclosed, as should any sponsorship, advertising, underwriting, commercial funding arrangements or support, or potential conflicts of interest. This includes arrangements in which links to other sites are posted as a result of financial considerations. Similar standards should hold in discussion forums.
• Currency: Dates that content was posted and updated should be indicated.

COPYRIGHT The logos, format, and content of this website are copyright by David L. Nelson, MD. The copyright to all of the text, photographs, x-rays, and all other written or graphic material is reserved to the respective author(s). These copyrights are recognized by international copyright law. Posting on this site does not waive any copyright. Journal abstracts are copyrighted by the journal cited. No material of any kind from this site may be used or stored in any manner whatever, without written permission.

MEMBER AFFIRMATION The applicant for membership affirms that they are a surgeon, academic researcher, or employee/agent of a sponsor of this site. They agreed to be bound by the terms and conditions listed.

DISCLAIMER The material presented in this website is being made available for educational purposes only. This material is not intended to represent the only, nor necessarily the best, methods or procedures appropriate for the medical situation discussed, but rather it is intended to present an approach, view, statement, or opinion of the author, which may be helpful, or of interest, to other practitioners. Details of patient history, physical exam, or other information, not provided in the brief case history and treatment, can profoundly alter the treatment scenario, and therefore the surgeon is advised to use his judgment before conclusions can be properly drawn from any comments or reviews contained herein.

The case studies presented may be hypothetical scenarios provided only for illustrative purposes, and comments may be intended for furthering discussion rather than as a true criticism of care provided. No comments, in the reviews or elsewhere, about care provided is meant to imply, or should be construed as implying, that the care provided was poor care, was improper care, or that the treatment provided was below the standard of care.

The site visitor agrees to participate in this website with full knowledge and awareness that they waive a any claim they may have against the website, the website owners, or the authors, for reliance on any information presented in this site.

DEVICE APPROVAL The approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is required for procedures and drugs that are considered experimental. Instrumentation systems discussed may not yet have received FDA approval. This is an international website. At times the author may be from a country other than the United States, and the instrumentation system may not be approved for use in United States. Conversely, the instrumentation system may not be approved for use in the site visitor's country. It is the responsibility of the member to ascertain that the device is appropriate in their country.

PUBLIC DOMAIN Members are advised to consider comments posted to this site to be in the public domain. Members should be aware that eRadius.com is an open website. This means that any opinion expressed may be read by any site visitor.

PERMANENCE Messages posted in eRadius.com are archived and are, in effect, permanent - once a message has been posted it cannot be withdrawn.

ONLINE CONDUCT Please be considerate of others when you post a message. There may be aspects of the case that you are unaware of, and rarely can any particular case only be addressed only in one manner. Another surgeon may choose, quite appropriately, to solve a clinical problem in a different manner. Avoid defamatory statements. While the vast majority of messages are not contentious, some may expose the author, or others, to risk. In this environment, members are asked to consider what they are posting. We would like to think that eRadius.com members will not take advantage of each other, but the nature of the site means that membership is open to all surgeons. In particular, members should remember that messages may leave them vulnerable to legal action, in the way that any normal conversation would.

Members agree to use the web site only for lawful purposes and are prohibited from posting on the web site any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory or obscene material of any kind, including, but not limited to, any material which encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law. Although in the absence of a specific complaint the postings are not monitored for compliance with this provision, in an effort to discourage such conduct, please note that all postings will list the author's name.

ACCURACY It is assumed that members post accurate information. The owners cannot be responsible for the content of messages submitted by members. Opinions should be backed up by literature references, when possible. This increases the educational opportunities for all of us. Many statements cannot be backed by literature references. It should be clear that these statements are the member's own opinion or are based on the member's own experience.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN DISCUSSION GROUPS All members should identify if they have a potential conflict of interest with a device being discussed. This does not imply that their comments are biased, but other members have a right to know if the discussant has a potential conflict of interest. Members who post comments without such notice will be requested to do so; members who decline to correct such behavior will be dropped from membership.

NO MEDICAL ADVICE The information posted on eRadius.com is not intended to replace normal clinical decision making. eRadius.com is specifically not a forum for patients to pose clinical questions.

NO WARRANTIES The eRadius.com website is provided on an "as is," "as available" basis without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including, but not limited to, those of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement or any warranty arising from a course of dealing, usage, or trade practice. No oral advice or written information provided shall create a warranty; nor shall members or visitors to the site rely on any such information or advice.

DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY The user assumes all responsibility and risk for the use of eRadius. Under no circumstances, including negligence, shall anyone involved in creating or maintaining this website be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages or lost profits that result from the use or inability to use the web site. Nor shall they be liable for any such damages including, but not limited to, reliance by a member or visitor on any information obtained via the website; or that result from mistakes, omissions, interruptions, deletion of files, viruses, errors, defects, or any failure of performance, communications failure, theft, destruction or unauthorized access.

THIRD PARTY CONTENT We are distributors (not publishers) of the content supplied by visitors and other third parties. Accordingly, we have no more editorial control over this content than does a public library. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content made available by members, visitors and other third parties are those of the respective author(s) and we are not responsible for any material posted by third parties. We cannot and do not endorse it in any way, nor do we vouch for its accuracy or usefulness. Furthermore, we expressly disclaim any liability associated with material posted by third parties.

DISCLAIMER OF ENDORSEMENT Reference to any products, services, or other information by trade name, trademark, supplier or otherwise does not constitute or imply its endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation by us. The commercial sponsors of this site are stated on the homepage, as an acknowledgement to these sponsors for their assistance in this educational endeavor and to let the membership know the identity of the sponsors. All sponsors support this site through an unrestricted educational grant, and they have no control whatever over the contents of the site. Acknowledgement of their support should not be construed as an endorsement of any of their products.

OWNERSHIP AND CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The site owner is David L.Nelson, MD, who has commercial relationships with several medical device companies (among them, Orthofix, Howmedica, and possibly others) related to medical device invention (royalties) and consultancies, some of which are related to the distal radius. Dr. Nelson will not promote any of his products or the products of the sponsors on the site, nor show any favoritism for such products or companies. The site is supported by the sponsors noted on the homepage. There is no favoritism shown to any of these companies in the material discussed on this site, and they have no input of any kind into the content of the site. (See also Disclaimer of Endorsement, above.)

INFORMATION SUBJECT TO CHANGE Any information on this web site may include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Furthermore, the information may change from time to time without any notice.

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