It’s easy to get focused on our own cases. When busy we are tempted to post our case, get input from colleagues, and get back to our patients. We can forget that seeking help on the VIN Message Boards is different from looking things up in a textbook, conference proceedings or periodical. It’s an interaction — a two-or-three-or-ten-way conversation that’s more like service rounds in a large practice.

It’s also easy to forget that these discussions are archived in the VIN database. That is the “magic soup” of VIN. Enter a few words in the VIN Search and along with journal article, textbook, conference proceedings and other sources, you’ll find message board discussions describing cases similar to yours. Sometimes you find the exact bit of help you hoped for. Often you find something more valuable, suggestions for the right questions to ask about your patient, leading you to the appropriate diagnosis, prognosis and therapy.

Together, the VIN Community has built the largest collation of veterinary information in the world. Like any information resource, it’s not perfect. One way we can, together, improve the information in the VIN database is providing complete case presentations.

Complete case presentations start with a signalment. Many of the medical folders give you the option of entering your patient’s signalment at the beginning of your post. Doing so provides your colleagues with that information at the top of every post in the thread, allowing all to see your patient’s pertinent details at a glance. Entering a complete signalment also greatly adds power to the VIN search, allowing refinement to specific patient breed, sex, and age, etc.

You may not know that Message Board discussions are carefully indexed by an amazing team of colleagues so you and all colleagues can find the ones most relevant to your needs using VIN Search.

You also may not know that a dedicated member of the VIN Content team, Teri Oursler, emails posters asking for “the rest of the story” when an interesting thread was left unfinished without relaying the outcome. To date, Teri’s emails have prompted follow-up in more than 14,000 discussions! If you’ve received a Teri email and gone back to update your thread, thank you! By doing so, you’ve helped all your fellow VINners.

In this way, with each message board post, every VINner contributes to the knowledge base, helping other VINners.

Over the years, it’s become clear that if you ask 100 VINners what VIN is, you'll get at least 20 and perhaps 120 different answers. For some it is just a service they pay for; they want answers and have little interest in being a part of anything. For others it is their strongest tie to our veterinary profession — their veterinary family.

VIN is not a ‘you pays your dues and you gets your answer’ place. VIN is a community of colleagues learning from each other.

When it seems like a consultant/editor is explaining things you already knew or suggesting tests you believe your client can’t or won’t afford, remember they aren’t just answering your questions about your case. They are speaking to the database; they are speaking a wider audience – current and future VINners who will have similar cases to yours and Search for answers in the future.

This is also the case when consultants/editors, reps, or other VINners ask more questions initially than they answer. The more information you can provide, the more complete the database for all colleagues and the better the help your colleagues can offer you.

Some folders, such as the Diagnostic Imaging folder, expressly state this purpose of VIN on the About Page.

The Consultants and Associate Editors are here to share their knowledge and experience so everyone's image interpretation skills will grow — and improve their case management.

This folder's purpose is to address technical issues, as well as help VINners find and understand specific diagnostic criteria when interpreting images. This folder is not an imaging service. This folder should not be relied upon for immediate case management. That is simply not feasible, given the equipment and time constraints involved.

This folder is where veterinarians help veterinarians help themselves.

It might be annoying to feel like you’re being asked more questions regarding your post than you’re being given answers, but as John Daugherty, an Associate Editor in the DI folder has written: “On VIN, we try to provide as much information as we can, and if it's not possible to answer a question without more information, it's our obligation to say so. That doesn't mean someone is a "bad doctor" if they can't get any more information. I'm sure it may come across that way sometimes, but I can say with some confidence that it's not intended that way by the vast majority of consultants. Electronic communication can sometimes make comments sound harsher than they're intended as well. So can being in a hurry, which I know I'm guilty of pretty often. ;-)”

Finally VIN Rep, Bryce Fleming has some on-point tips for posting cases in these two threads: Discussion  Discussion 

Remember, when you present a case on the message boards, you aren’t just asking for an opinion from others; you are helping yourself and your colleagues learn