Editorial standards
In short
Coloscopy.com is an independent patient-information reference. Every clinical page is drafted by writers with health-content experience, reviewed by clinicians with relevant procedural experience before publication, cited to published guidelines and primary literature, and revised when its sources change. The site does not carry advertising, sponsored content, or affiliate revenue, and does not sell appointments, products, or the data of its readers.
What this page covers
The editorial process behind the words on this site. We describe how pages are commissioned, written, reviewed, cited, corrected, and updated; how we declare independence and handle conflicts of interest; and what the site does not do, deliberately. The goal is that a reader, a clinician, or a regulator can read this page and understand exactly how the reference is made.
Authorship and clinical review
Each page is drafted by a writer working in plain language from the published guidelines and literature relevant to the topic. Drafts are then reviewed by one or more clinicians with experience in the relevant area — gastroenterology, endoscopy nursing, anaesthesia for endoscopy, primary care, or coloproctology — before the page is published. Reviewers check factual accuracy against current guidelines, identify omissions, and flag any wording that is unclear or potentially misleading.
We do not display individual bylines. This reflects a deliberate editorial choice rather than an oversight. Patient information is most reliable when it represents the consensus of the relevant guidelines rather than the opinion of a single named individual; bylines on patient-information sites can also be used to manufacture authority. Readers who want to know who is behind the site can write to editorial@coloscopy.com; we will respond, in good faith, with information about how a particular page was produced and reviewed. We do not publish, invent, or imply credentials we do not hold.
Pages that have not yet completed clinical review are not on the site. Drafts in progress are not exposed publicly.
Sources and citations
Pages cite the organisations whose guidance most directly informs them. We prioritise, in roughly this order:
- Current clinical guidelines from the major national and international bodies — see guidelines and sources.
- Consensus statements and position papers from the same bodies.
- High-quality systematic reviews and meta-analyses where guidelines are silent or out of date.
- Large prospective cohort studies and registry analyses for real-world rates.
- Randomised trials for procedural questions where they exist.
We avoid pinning a page to a single guideline version number that will go out of date the moment the body issues an update; instead, we cite the body and let readers find the current version through the body's own site. When a particular page makes a point that depends on a particular update, we say so in the text.
We do not invent URLs, DOIs, or publication years. We do not fabricate quotations or attribute statements to bodies that have not made them. Where a topic is contested between major bodies, we say so and identify the differing positions.
Independence and funding
Coloscopy.com is funded by its operator, who is independent of the device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, hospital systems, and insurers whose products and services are discussed on the site. The reference does not accept:
- Display advertising
- Sponsored content of any kind
- Native advertising or "brand partner" arrangements
- Affiliate links or referral commissions
- Payment from any health or device company in exchange for editorial decisions
The site does not collect personally identifiable information from readers (other than the email address of correspondents who write in), does not track readers across the wider web, and does not sell or share any data with third parties. See privacy.
We do not sell appointments, do not refer readers to specific clinics or hospitals, and do not run a symptom checker. The reference exists to give a reader the words and context to ask their own clinician better questions, not to compete with the clinical relationship.
Conflicts of interest
Writers and reviewers disclose relevant conflicts of interest before working on a page; clinicians with active financial relationships with a product whose use is discussed on a page are excluded from reviewing that page. Editorial conflicts policies are summarised on the conflicts of interest page.
Conflicts of interest at the level of professional societies — for example, where a society receives unrestricted educational grants from a device manufacturer — are noted in context where they bear on the position the society takes. We do not assume that such relationships invalidate guidelines, but we believe readers should know they exist.
Corrections
Errors will happen. When we find or are told about one, we correct it. The site's corrections policy describes how to report an error, what we do with the report, and how we mark a corrected page. Substantive corrections — changes to a clinical fact, a number, or a recommendation — are noted in a brief change log at the foot of the affected page, with the date of the correction and a short description of what changed. Typographical and formatting corrections are made silently.
Reports of errors should be sent to corrections@coloscopy.com. Specific page references and a short description of the issue are most useful.
Updates and revision
Guidelines change. Pages on this site are reviewed against their primary sources on a recurring schedule, and when a major body issues an update relevant to a page, the page is reviewed sooner. We do not list a calendar reminder on every page; we do not want to encourage the use of an out-of-date page even before the next scheduled review. If you are unsure whether a particular fact on this site is current, the citing organisation's own current guidance is the authoritative version.
Plain-language standards
The site is written for adults who do not have medical training. We aim for the directness of a senior nurse explaining something to a thoughtful patient — exact, unhurried, willing to say what is not known. We avoid:
- Marketing language ("revolutionary", "best-in-class", "the gold standard", "clinically proven").
- Manufactured uncertainty in the other direction ("some experts say…", "many believe…") where guidelines are clear.
- The promise of certainty about an individual reader's case — only a clinician who knows you can offer that.
- Symptom checklists framed as diagnostic tools.
- Imagery designed to alarm rather than to inform.
What the site does not do
It is worth being explicit. Coloscopy.com:
- Does not diagnose. It cannot tell you whether you need a coloscopy, what your symptoms mean, or whether a finding on your report is serious in your particular case.
- Does not book appointments. We do not have a relationship with any provider or clinic.
- Does not run a symptom checker, a quiz, a calculator, or a "how worried should you be" tool.
- Does not chat. There is no AI assistant interface to this site, and there are no plans for one. Pages are static text.
- Does not collect or sell reader data beyond what is described on the privacy page.
How to use this page
This page is reference, not clinical guidance — it describes how this site is made, not what to do about your bowel. Bring questions about your own care to the relevant clinician.
Common worries, briefly addressed
Why no individual bylines?
Bylines on patient-information sites can manufacture authority — readers see a name and a string of letters and assume the page is reliable. Conversely, the absence of a byline can read as evasive. We have made the deliberate trade. The page is reliable because the writing reflects the consensus of cited bodies and has been reviewed by clinicians, not because a particular individual signed it. We are happy to describe the process for any specific page on request.
How current is this material?
Each clinical page is reviewed against its source guidelines on a schedule, and revised sooner when major bodies issue updates. The site does not display a "last updated" date prominently because we have found that such dates are easily misread — a 2024 review does not always change anything in a stable area, and a 2023 review of a fast-moving area might already be out of date. For clinical questions where currency matters, the issuing body's own current guidance is authoritative.
Who reviews the pages?
Clinicians with relevant procedural experience — typically gastroenterologists, endoscopy nurses, and primary-care or anaesthesia clinicians — review pages in their area of expertise before publication. We do not publish credentials we cannot verify, and we do not invent reviewer names. Readers wanting more detail about the review of a specific page can write to editorial@coloscopy.com.
I disagree with something on the site.
Tell us. The contact addresses below all reach a real inbox. We read what readers send. If you believe a page contains an error, the corrections address is the most direct route. If your disagreement is with the framing rather than the facts, we will still take a careful look — patient experience is part of the picture and we want to know when our framing has missed the mark.
Are you affiliated with any clinic, hospital, or company?
No.
Sources
- International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) — recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals (used as the framework for our citation and authorship practice).
- Health on the Net Foundation — the HONcode principles for trustworthy health information, used as a long-standing baseline for editorial transparency.
- Cochrane Collaboration — methodological standards for systematic reviews relied on across this site.
- The published editorial policies of the leading clinical-evidence resources — used as comparator and benchmark.