Back in July 2002, Mary Leitao posted a request for help on the medhelp.org buletin board, and entered into a brief discussion with Dr Rockoff (a dermatologist). Dr Rockoff was very polite. After a few back and forth exchanges the thread devolved into a “me too!” state.
Dr Rockoff’s responses are very reasonable, and should be a model for similar exchanges.
http://www.medhelp.org/perl6/dermatology/messages/31706a.html
My favorite reply:
“Your concern with finding a “cause” is undertandable, but the world is full of phenomena which don’t have that kind of simple cause. The idea that you can go to Radio Shack and find what all the medical scientists on the world have overlooked is attractively romantic, but not very realistic.”