When I was making surgery decisions I dug into past posts in each section, in some cases going back several years. For more recent posts I asked questions directly on the thread or with a private message, although you will need 15 qualify posts before PM is enabled.
The Search function doesn't automatically sort by date, but there is a way. If you enter a blank field for Search a page will show an Advanced search function - from there you can have search results sorted by date.
