How do we go about getting a separate preventative medicine forum on SDN?

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I finish residency soon and would be happy to help moderate. I see a lot of preventative medicine threads in the tox thread although tox is only a fellowship for prev med.

Preventative Medicine Residencies/Fellowships
General Prev Med
Aerospace Medicine
Occupational Medicine

Fellowships alone
Undersead and Hyperbaric Medicine
Toxicology

I wouldn't mind moderating a preventative medicine forum if it was decided that there should be one. Granted I am still only a medical student.

There wouldn't be enough traffic to support a separate PM/OM forum. We got the PM/OM threads moved here because at least there's some overlap, and it's better than letting all the PM/OM threads get buried in the Gen Res forum.

I actually think if there was a separate PM/OM thread that it would get more traffic than this medical toxicology thread or the international health thread as see by the posts in this forum alone.

Originally Posted by toomuch

I actually think if there was a separate PM/OM thread that it would get more traffic than this medical toxicology thread or the international health thread as see by the posts in this forum alone.

One thread does not a forum make. Even that other thread is 41% you and that other guy. As was stated in that other thread:

Originally Posted by gutonc

Because there are about 3 threads per year. It would shrivel up and die.

(Although, from you post, I think you are conflating "thread" and "forum".)

I don't know on what you base your belief that a separate PM/OM forum would get more traffic. As the axiom goes, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Statistical analysis does not support your belief. It just ain't there.

Again, if the topic is advertised as a forum, then you would naturally get more traffic

Originally Posted by toomuch

Again, if the topic is advertised as a forum, then you would naturally get more traffic

Based on what data?

Honestly, you'd probably just get more spam.

Originally Posted by toomuch

Again, if the topic is advertised as a forum, then you would naturally get more traffic

Tell that to the "Practicing Physicians" forum, the departed EM Journal Club, and the Sleep Medicine forum.

Again, on what do you base this? You make a supposition without evidence. You'll need more than a teleological explanation.

Originally Posted by toomuch

Again, if the topic is advertised as a forum, then you would naturally get more traffic

The problem is that most people haven't ever even heard of PM/OM, so they'd never read a separate forum. They might not have heard of MT either, but at least MT is well-advertised on this board under three other popular main forums (EM, Peds, and Pharmacy), all of which send traffic our way.

Getting people exposed to the existence of PM/OM as a specialty is the biggest advantage to having the handful of PM/OM threads located here. EM is by far one of the most popular residency forums on SDN. Just think about all of the pre-meds who volunteer in EDs and then go to medical school planning to be EM docs. Plus you have the pre-hospital crowd, medicine, anesthesia, etc. that read the EM forum too. Just from the popularity of EM alone, I'm betting that you'll actually get far MORE exposure for your specialty by being combined with MT. Though of course I don't have data to back up my claim either.

It is a primary residency, I just thought it would be good for students and residents communicate about it. Other sites have better pm and occ med forums. I like this site, I thought it would be a nice edition.

I will pass the request on to site administration. We have had many subspecialty forums that have been created and then had no traffic. In that case they do tend to be distractions and spam collectors.

There is a sub-forum under Family Medicine called "Tropical & International Medicine". I have no idea why it is placed under Family Medicine. What has Family Medicine to do tropical/international medicine?! That forum can be converted into a Preventive Medicine forum (since tropical/international medicine purely and clearly falls under Preventive Medicine, not Family Medicine).