Know Your Surgery is built only from authoritative US medical sources. We do not draw from personal blogs, commercial product sites, content farms, or unverified sources. Below is the public bibliography of source families we cite, organized by tier. Within each article, individual claims are linked to specific source pages.

For details on how we select and verify sources, see our Editorial Policy.

Tier 1 — Federal US Health Authorities

These are the highest-tier sources. When tier-one and tier-two sources conflict, tier-one governs.

• National Institutes of Health (NIH) — federal medical research agency
• MedlinePlus (NIH/NLM) — patient-facing health information from the NIH
• PubMed (NIH/NLM) — peer-reviewed biomedical literature database
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — federal public health agency
• CDC National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) — US health statistics
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — drug, device, and biologic approvals
• National Cancer Institute (NCI) — federal cancer research agency
• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) — federal mental health research agency
• National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) — federal musculoskeletal and dermatological research
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) — federal cardiovascular and respiratory research
• National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) — federal endocrine and digestive research
• U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) — independent panel on preventive services
• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) — federal healthcare quality research

Tier 2 — Major US Academic Medical Centers

Patient-facing health information published by leading US academic medical centers.

• Mayo Clinic — Rochester, Minnesota
• Cleveland Clinic — Cleveland, Ohio
• Johns Hopkins Medicine — Baltimore, Maryland
• Massachusetts General Hospital — Boston, Massachusetts
• UCLA Health — Los Angeles, California
• Mount Sinai Health System — New York, New York
• Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) — orthopedics, New York
• MD Anderson Cancer Center — oncology, Houston
• Stanford Health Care — Palo Alto, California
• University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Health — San Francisco, California
• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center — oncology, New York

Tier 3 — US Specialty Medical Associations

Specialty associations setting US clinical practice guidelines and patient education.

Cardiovascular

• American Heart Association (AHA)
• American College of Cardiology (ACC)
• Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS)

Orthopedic

• American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) / OrthoInfo
• American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR)
• Arthritis Foundation

Neurosurgical

• American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS)
• Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS)

Cancer

• American Cancer Society (ACS)
• American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)

Mental Health

• American Psychiatric Association (APA)
• American Psychological Association (APA)
• International OCD Foundation (IOCDF)
• Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA)
• National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)

Obstetric / Gynecological

• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)
• Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM)

Ophthalmic

• American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO)

Urological

• American Urological Association (AUA)

Otolaryngology (ENT)

• American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS)

Surgical (general)

• American College of Surgeons (ACS)

Other

• American Diabetes Association (ADA)
• American Lung Association (ALA)
• American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)

Clinical References

For deeper clinical accuracy verification, we cross-reference against:

• UpToDate — clinical decision support summaries
• Merck Manuals — comprehensive medical reference
• Cochrane Library — systematic reviews of healthcare interventions

How to Verify Our Sources

Every clinical claim, statistic, and recommendation in our articles is traced to one of the source families above before publication. Within an article, you can:

1. Click any inline citation link to read the original source
2. Look at the publication date (we flag statistics older than five years)
3. Email editorial@knowyoursurgery.com if you want to discuss source selection on a specific article
4. Read our Editorial Policy for the full source-selection workflow

What We Do Not Cite

We do not cite the following as primary medical sources:

• Personal health blogs or wellness influencers
• Commercial health product websites or manufacturer pages (except for FDA-approved labeling)
• Patient forums or user-generated content
• Non-US regulatory bodies as primary sources for US-targeted content
• Generative AI outputs from any model
• Wikipedia (used only for general background context, never for clinical claims)

Corrections

If you believe a citation is missing, outdated, or incorrect on any article, email editorial@knowyoursurgery.com with the article URL and the specific concern. Our correction policy is in our Editorial Policy.

Last reviewed: April 2026. Source families above are reviewed annually. Individual citations within articles are reviewed when we publish or update each article.