Editorial and Medical Review Policy
Health information is rarely read for interest. It is read by someone standing in a hallway at midnight deciding whether a fever, a chest tightness, or a cough that will not ease up can wait until the clinic opens. That decision deserves accurate information. This page sets out who writes what you read here, how it is reviewed, which sources sit behind our medical claims, and how often we check that those claims still hold.
Last reviewed: July 2026
How Our Content Is Created
Writers on the ER of Watauga editorial team produce every page on this site. Research comes first and it comes from primary medical sources, not from other websites covering the same topic.
Only after that does drafting begin, in plain language, because someone weighing a respiratory emergency for a family member should not have to work through clinical terminology to find the answer.
Each page is built around a decision: what the symptom may indicate, what raises it to an emergency, and what to do at that point.
How Our Content Is Medically Reviewed
Any page covering a medical topic on our website is reviewed by a qualified medical professional for accuracy and clarity before it goes live.
Reviewed by: Dr. Abbas Raza Mian, MD, Emergency Medicine, ER of Watauga
Our reviewer checks that:
- Symptoms, diagnostic tests, and treatments are described correctly
- The content matches current medical guidance and standard emergency practice
- Warning signs are specific enough for a reader to act on
- No wording could cause someone to wait longer than they should
Pages that fail review are returned for revision rather than published with a disclaimer.
The Sources We Use
Our health content rests on established clinical and public health authorities:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- National Institutes of Health (NIH) and MedlinePlus
- American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP)
- American Heart Association (AHA)
- American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
- Peer-reviewed journals and published clinical guidelines
Where we cite a statistic, a clinical threshold, or a treatment standard, the link points to the original publication rather than to coverage of it. Verifying what we say should take one click.
How We Keep Our Content Current
Clinical guidance moves. A page written three years ago can drift out of alignment with current practice without anything on it looking wrong. We work through our medical content on a rolling schedule and refresh each page at least annually, sooner when guidance is revised.
A visible last reviewed date sits on our pages so you can weigh how current the information is. Content that no longer reflects accepted practice is corrected or removed. Outdated pages do not stay online for the traffic they bring.
Corrections and Feedback
Spotted something that reads as wrong, unclear, or behind current guidance? Send us the page and the issue through our contact page. It reaches the editorial team directly. Confirmed errors are fixed and the review date on that page is updated.
Editorial Independence
Accuracy and patient safety drive our editorial decisions. No advertiser, sponsor, or outside party has a say in what we publish, how we describe a condition, or where we send readers for care. When a hospital or a specialist is the right destination rather than a freestanding emergency room, the page says so.
What this Content Is and Is Not
What you read here is educational. It is not a diagnosis, a treatment plan, or a replacement for evaluation by a clinician who can examine you and knows your history. Reading it creates no doctor-patient relationship.
If you believe you are facing a medical emergency, call 911 or come to ER of Watauga. We are open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, with board-certified emergency physicians and imaging and labs on-site.