Editorial Policy

This site sits in the space where travel meets recovery, so accuracy is not optional. This page sets out how an article is written, sourced, medically reviewed and kept current, and why a site written by one traveller still leans on a consultant’s check before anything reaches you.

Who writes, and who reviews

The writing and the first hand experience are mine, in the first person, drawn from my own post-operative flights and the years of reading and asking that followed them. I am not a clinician, so the medical substance of every article is reviewed by Dr Helena Boyd, a Consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine (MB ChB, MRCP, FRCP). The two roles stay deliberately separate: I carry the lived experience and the plain language, she safeguards the medicine. She does not write the guides, and I do not sign off the medical claims. Where an article gives fitness to fly timings, clot risk figures or advice on clearance, those are the passages she reads most closely.

What the figures rest on

Numbers on this site come from authoritative, named sources rather than from anecdote. For fitness to fly and cabin conditions I rely on the UK Civil Aviation Authority. For recovery after surgery, deep vein thrombosis and general health guidance I use the NHS. For travel related clot risk and travellers’ health I use the US CDC and the World Health Organization. Any figure I put in print, a typical wait after a given operation, a clot risk range, a recommended interval for moving in your seat, comes with a source you can follow on the Resources page.

Keeping the figures consistent

Timings and risk figures are easy to garble if each article quotes them slightly differently, so I hold them to a single reference set and use the same phrasing across the site. When guidance from a source body changes, I update the figure everywhere it appears rather than in one guide alone, so two articles never quietly disagree.

No medical advice

Everything here is general information for planning and understanding, not medical advice and not a clearance for your particular case. A guide can tell you what questions to ask and what tends to be true in general; it cannot assess you. The person who decides when you are fit to travel is the surgeon who performed your operation. The full limits are on the Medical Disclaimer page.

Corrections

Airline rules move, and clinical guidance is revised. I revisit published guides on a regular cycle, and each shows when it was last updated. If you spot something that reads wrong or has aged, the Contact page reaches me and I will look into it promptly, correcting the article and noting the change.

Independence

No airline, clinic, insurer or clinic booking service pays to be featured, mentioned favourably or linked here, and none is. I recommend no particular provider. Where I point you to an outside body it is because it is authoritative, not because there is any arrangement behind it.