Clinical Advisory

Why we publish with clinical input

Our writers are good at plain language. They are not clinicians, and they should not be the last pair of eyes on a sentence about a symptom, a test or a treatment. So no guide goes on sale until a practising clinician has read the whole draft, raised whatever is wrong or missing, and confirmed the revised version.

Who reviews our guides

Reviewers are practising obstetricians and gynaecologists working in India, usually alongside hospital, clinic or teaching practice. Three roles sit around every guide, and they are kept separate on purpose.

The clinical reviewer

Reads the full draft and signs off on the clinical content. Their comments — and our answers to them — are recorded against the edition of the guide they reviewed.

The editorial team

Writes and rewrites in plain language, and ties every factual claim to a source the reviewer accepts: national guidance, professional-body guidance, or peer-reviewed literature.

The publishing check

A final read that confirms every reviewer comment was either applied to the text or answered in writing. A comment that is neither stops the guide being published.

We do not print a reviewer’s name unless they have agreed to be named. If you would like to know which clinician reviewed the guide you are reading, write to us and we will tell you.

How a guide is reviewed

The order matters, so it is worth setting out:

1. 1Brief. We choose the stage to write about, and the questions women actually bring to it — from the emails we receive, from reader replies, and from what keeps coming up in clinic.
2. 2Draft. The editorial team writes it, in plain language, with each claim traceable to a source.
3. 3Clinical review. A practising gynaecologist reads the full draft and returns written comments: what is inaccurate, what is out of date, what is missing, what is stated too strongly, and where a reader should be sent to a doctor instead.
4. 4Revision. We answer every comment. Where we disagree, we say so in writing and explain why; where the reviewer is right, the text changes rather than the claim being quietly softened.
5. 5Sign-off. The guide is published only after the reviewer confirms the revised version, and that review date is recorded against the edition.
6. 6Re-review. Guides go back to a reviewer on a cycle, and sooner if guidance changes or a reader shows us something that is not right.

What clinical review covers

A reviewer is not checking the spelling. These are the things they read for:

• Whether the explanation of what is happening in the body is accurate, and whether the everyday Indian context around it is right.
• Symptom patterns and red flags: what is common, what deserves attention, and what must never be left to a guide.
• Tests and procedures — what a clinician would actually order, in the order they would order it, and what each result does and does not tell you.
• The questions worth carrying into an appointment, and how to ask them in a way that gets heard.
• Treatment options, including hormone therapy where a guide covers it: what each option can and cannot do.
• Sentences that could frighten a reader, or that promise more than the evidence supports. Both come out.

What clinical review does not mean

This part matters more than the rest, and it is why the same limits are repeated on every guide page.

• It is not a diagnosis. Nobody on our team has seen your history, your reports or your body.
• It is not a prescription. A guide cannot decide whether a treatment is right for you; that decision belongs to you and to the clinician who examines you.
• It is not an endorsement of every source we cite. Clinicians differ and practice changes; where it is genuinely divided, we say so rather than pick a side for you.

If a guide and your doctor disagree, your doctor wins — they can see you and a guide cannot. Take the guide to the appointment and ask about the difference. That conversation is what the guide is for.

Independence, and how reviewers are paid

A review has to be able to say no. These are the terms we hold ourselves to so that it can:

• Reviewers are paid a flat fee for the time a review takes. They are not offered a share of sales, royalties or equity, and nothing about their pay changes with how many copies a guide sells.
• No guide has been funded, reviewed or influenced by a pharmaceutical, supplement or device company, and we take no advertising or sponsored content inside a guide.
• If a reviewer concluded that a guide should not be published, it would not be published. That is written into the terms we agree with them, not left to goodwill.
• Where a free resource is produced with a partner, the partnership is stated on the page that carries it.

Corrections, editions and dates

Medicine moves, and a guide that cannot be corrected is not worth buying.

• Every guide carries the month and year of its last clinical review. Read that date with the content.
• A guide is never quietly changed. When a revision alters something material — a test, a red flag, a recommendation — it becomes a new dated edition.
• If you spot something wrong, tell us. The fact is corrected, the correction is logged against the edition it applies to, and where it changes what the guide tells a reader, buyers who ask for the revised edition are sent it at no cost.

Corrections from readers are how a guide stays honest between reviews, which is why the address below is a real one.

Raise a clinical concern

If something in a guide does not match what your clinician has told you, or looks wrong to you, write to us with the guide name and the chapter. A clinical question goes to a reviewer. It is not answered by the editorial team, and it is never answered with a guess.