Community Guidelines for Members

In order to foster productive discussions and maintain a safe space for plastic surgery consumers ("Patients") to come together as a community, we require all Plastic Surgeons ("Members") to adhere to the following guidelines while participating in the Patient Community (the "Community").

• The Community does not provide medical advice or treatment consultations on particular patient cases. All interactions in the Community between Members and Patients shall be exclusively limited to general advice and consultation about prevailing standards of care. None of ASPS, the Community or any Member shall be listed and/or represented to any third party as a treating physician and/or provider involved in or responsible in any way for a Patient's course of treatment, care or outcomes. Without limiting the foregoing, Members shall acknowledge and agree that they are exclusively and solely responsible for the care of and treatment decisions for their patient(s) and none of ASPS, the Community nor any Patient shall be responsible to the Member or any patient for claims, disputes, decisions, damages or settlements arising therefrom.
• In no way shall a physician-patient relationship be created when a Member offers exclusively limited general advice or consultation about prevailing standards of care to a Patient in the Community.
• Members shall not submit or provide any information which identifies a patient or otherwise constitutes protected health information or personally identifiable information under federal or state privacy laws without the legal authority to do so, including without limitation obtaining any and all required authorizations and/or consents. Transmission of patient information to the Community and/or a Patient in violation of the foregoing is prohibited.
• Without limiting the above, Members are responsible for all content, including but not limited to registration data, photos, videos, comments, text, documents and other information ("User Submissions") that they upload, enter or transmit to the Community. Members shall not upload any User Submission that infringes or violates any rights of any party or that compromises the privacy of any person or patient. In particular, Members are specifically prohibited from posting or transmitting to the Community or any Patient (i) any unlawful, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic or other material or content that would violate rights of publicity and/or privacy or that would violate any law; (ii) any commercial material or content (including, but not limited to, solicitation of funds, advertising or marketing of any good or services); and (iii) any material or content that infringes, misappropriates or violates any copyright, trademark, patent right or other proprietary right of any third party. Members shall be solely liable for any damages resulting from any violation of the foregoing restrictions or any other harm resulting from your provision of such content to the Community or any Patient.
• Members acknowledge that ASPS may exercise its rights to delete any content you submit without notice to you. ASPS has no obligation to respond to your submission, if, in its sole discretion, ASPS believes the submission to be unlawful, inappropriate, in violation of these Guidelines and/or outside the scope of the Community. ASPS reserves the right in its absolute discretion to determine which submissions are published to Patients as part of participation in the Community. If you do not agree to these Guidelines, please do not provide us with any User Submissions.
• Members agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless ASPS, its affiliates, donors to the Community, licensors, employees, agents, Patients and any third‑party information providers to the Community from and against all claims, losses, expenses, damages and costs (including, but not limited to, direct, incidental, consequential, exemplary and indirect damages) and reasonable attorneys' fees, resulting from or arising out of Member's use, misuse or inability to use the site, the Community or any violation by a Member of these Terms.
• Members shall follow and abide by the ASPS Code of Ethics at all times while participating in the Community. Members shall maintain professionalism at all times, not only with patients but also fellow surgeons. Members shall remember that this is a public forum and the Member's behavior reflects on the Society and the Specialty as a whole.
• Members shall avoid conflicts of interest and disclose any connections they have with medical device companies or other plastic-surgery-related businesses beyond your own practice that are relevant to the discussion.
• ASPS makes no representation that materials, products or services made available within the Community are appropriate or available for use in locations outside the United States and accessing them from territories where the Community or its services is illegal is prohibited. Those who choose to access the Community from other locations do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws.