Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 10

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Sorbitol Pathway

Someone made a new article at Sorbitol Pathway that was written pretty disgustingly. First of all, "Sorbitol Pathway" is synonymous with "Polyol pathway," so for the time being I have made it a redirect and have put the information the person put at this page here: User:Andrew Nutter/Sorbitol Pathway. The current state of what was the article (I think it was really only about how it relates to diabetes) is unacceptable to be in a Wikipedia article, so it is just sitting there at my user subpage. I have done a lot of markup to it to make it slightly more coherent, but at this point all that biology terminology is completely lost on me and I can't make it much better than it is. If someone could please edit it to make it coherent, then put it on the Polyol pathway page, it would be greatly appreciated. Again, feel free to edit my subpage User:Andrew Nutter/Sorbitol Pathway. Andrew Nutter  Talk | Contribs  19:15, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

It looks like that article (copied on your subpage) was written by someone whose first language is not English. In my opinion, it would be better to re-write "polyol pathway" from scratch. Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:27, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Linking to full-text journal articles

Should article titles in citations link to the full-text article when the PMID or DOI also redirect to the full-text version? Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 00:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I know most people only link to the full-text if it is freely available, or possibly if it is to a core journal (like NEJM, JAMA, Lancet, BMJ). --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 00:41, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, do you think it's necessary at all when the PMID or DOI also redirect to the full-text version? --Phenylalanine (talk) 00:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes I think all should be present to have a complete, bibliographically complete reference. Some people unfamiliar with DOI might benefit from a direct link. I wouldn't go about and remove all of these instances, neither would I go to the trouble of adding external links everywhere. This is not a major issue that creates inconsistency, and can somewhat be left to the discretion of the editor (I think many of us have their own preferred settings for Diberri's tool). --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. I think I tend to select 'Show extended fields, pad parameter names and values, add access date, add ref tag, add URL and link journal title (sometimes, depends on journal)'. I have no idea what others use but I'm sure it's not the same for everybody. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 17:23, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
I haven't found the tool to reliably fill in the URL only when free, nor always when free (i.e., it can be free but PubMed doesn't know). Sometimes there's a choice between the PubMedCentral and the journal's own free online copy. I don't use accessdate for journal articles with a URL and (currently) MEDMOS and most FAs agree this isn't needed because the journals articles aren't changeable the way a web page is.
As someone who doesn't have easy access to non-free journal articles, I find it essential that editors highlight those (and only those) that are free online, and the usual method is by hyperlinking the title. I wouldn't support Steven's suggestion of using such hyperlinking for core journals if non-free. If I'm reviewing a medical article, I add and remove title hyperlinks according to those rules. Colin°Talk 18:01, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't ever link to a ref's journal website, if the ref has a PMID or DOI. PMIDs and DOIs are static; journal websites are not. --Una Smith (talk) 18:35, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all. Colin, I agree that it would be useful to hyperlink the titles of articles as a means of indicating that they are freely available on-line. Maybe we should add this to the WBMED MoS. --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:33, 22 October 2008 (UTC)--Phenylalanine (talk) 23:33, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

From Template:Cite journal:

  • url: This should point to, in descending order of preference:

1. A free online version of the full text 2. An online version of the full text, for which subscription is required 3. An abstract or information page, if no DOI or PMID record is available

If a DOI or PMID is available, the URL should only be specified if it would point to a different page to that which a DOI or PMID would redirect to.

--Phenylalanine (talk) 15:34, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

When I look for references for Wikipedia, first I try to find a free full-text online source if possible. This demonstrates verifiability more easily. I link the url. Only if there is no such source available, I'll find another reference. Axl ¤ [Talk] 17:32, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

See proposal: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles)#Linking journal titles --Phenylalanine (talk) 18:25, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

List of dermatologic conditions

I have finally added a near complete listing of all skin disease and have tried to mirror the article's headings with the categorization scheme we have been discussing. I wanted to know if I could get some feedback about all this, particularly about the skin disease article (also, please see the discussion on that page). Thanks! kilbad (talk) 23:24, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps someone could help me fix the links on this page, and any other feedback is greatly appreciated as well! kilbad (talk) 14:27, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Gout needs work

Gout needs additional citations. The section "Treatment" in particular lists several treatments without cites. Article also might have some minor self-contradictions, for example "Food to avoid: ... Asparagus. Cauliflower. Mushrooms. Spinach. (Even though above says "Consumption of the more purine-rich vegetables or a high protein diet per se had no significant correlation.")" -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 03:24, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

That article is loaded with cruft. I am working on the diet part, slowly, waiting for refs to arrive. --Una Smith (talk) 04:24, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I would like to compliment everyone at this WikiProject for being more responsive to requests for help than most. Good work, folks! -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 18:57, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
On behalf of the several contributors who have worked on Gout since this request, I thank you Anon for the compliment. --Una Smith (talk) 22:32, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

eMedicine external template upgrading

In adding refs for what was apparant as a difference between US and UK order of drug use in acute gout management, it seemed clear that using {{Emedicine}} template could benefit for specifying where in what can be long articles an item was being sourced (e.g. per this edit to Gout). I therefore have added an additional optional 4th "section" parameter to {{EMedicine}} and amended its documentation accordingly - hope WP:MED participants find that helpful :-) David Ruben Talk 01:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Non-small cell lung carcinoma

Arcadian has moved "Non-small cell lung carcinoma staging" to "Non-small cell lung carcinoma". Please comment here. Axl ¤ [Talk] 18:55, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Spinal manipulation research

FYI: Spinal manipulation research resources. You are welcome to contribute with comments, suggestions, and additions at the talk page. -- Fyslee / talk 06:32, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Influenza pandemic

HI I am working on Influenza pandemic at the moment.

A complete rewrite is being undertaken at User:ZayZayEM/Flupandemic. I am trying to do this collobaratively, but at teh moment it appears a one man show.

Any help will be appreciated. The Influenza series of articles (even Influenza itself, depsite its FA status) appear quite wanting of TLC, IMHO.--ZayZayEM (talk) 06:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

add request

add lemon and banana sign (ultra sound) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.125.179.129 (talk) 17:40, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

lemon sign
banana sign
I believe both are ultra sound findings in the brain of a fetus (?). 207.151.245.128 (talk) 23:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

medical definition of growth rate

what do you think? is it valid to add the medical definition to this disambig page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.151.245.128 (talk) 01:48, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Something for the doctor's mess...

Anyone want to tackle Autologous Mesenchymal Stem Cell Transplant for Cartilage Growth? MOS:NAME alone makes me cringe. WLU (t) (c) (rules - simple rules) 18:40, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Soiling/Encopresis merger

I happened on the Soiling article, and there is apparently a discussion to merge it with the Encopresis article, however no such discussion seems to exist. If I'm going to clean up the mess that is the Soiling article, I would like to know that it's not just going to be merged into another article right after I'm done. Some guidance/discussion would be awesome! Thanks for the help Nickers (talk) 19:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Hm. I think Soiling would be better as a disambiguation page, with links to Encopresis and Fecal incontinence, maybe others. So, yes, merge the content of Soiling into those other articles. --Una Smith (talk) 16:31, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Distinguish diseases from infectious organisms

Hi,

I'm working on a proposal to make sure wikipedia tries to keep articles seperate with talking about diseases and the organisms that cause them.

Please take a look User:ZayZayEM/Proposal:Distinguish disease from infectious organisms if you feel this is a topic that should be discussed further.

I think that articles on disease should not be caught up talking about the infectious agent themself. They should focus on the infectious agent really only in terms of the disease itself (ie. epidemiology, and how the discovery of a connection between disease and infectious agent was found). This would prevent medical articles being bogged down with too much taxonomical classification data and general microbial ecology.

At teh same time it will allow more focus in organism articles on ecology, taxonomy and non-medical biology regarding the actual organism itself rather than mashing that together with information that would be mostly very human-centric.--ZayZayEM (talk) 05:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

This has been discussed before at WT:MEDMOS. There are times when a unified article makes the most sense, and times when a split makes the most sense. You might like to look up the old discussions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:39, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
I am opposed to a dictum on this; it depends on the aetiological agent. For some, separate articles make sense, but for many other articles it will create much overlapping text. I think we have to consider each disease/organism article(s) carefully to decide whether one or two articles are best for our readers. I prefer articles that give the full picture and particularly ones that put the more esoteric stuff at the end. But, WhatamIdoing has my support in saying, there are times when a unified article makes the most sense, and times when a split makes the most sense. Graham. Graham Colm Talk 22:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
So am I. It is feature creep. --Una Smith (talk) 23:15, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I've posted this notice in several forums (spelling errors and all ^_^). Please try and bring the discussion to my project page. That way the discussion will remain centralized. I have notified the WP:MEDMOS Talk as well. It looks like the discussion was heading in the direction of my proposal already. --ZayZayEM (talk) 23:25, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

How about we move this section to the WT:MEDMOS section about this? --Una Smith (talk) 01:57, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup on aisle...

Over-the-counter drug needs a makeover. --Una Smith (talk) 16:02, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd start by removing the entire "Using OTC drugs with children" section to the Talk page—it does not belong in the article; do we have something along the lines of cough and cold preparations instead? If all else fails, we can incorporate relevant information into the Common cold article and lose the rest. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:06, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
WP:PHARM might want to get in on this too. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 16:29, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I posted a note there. --Una Smith (talk) 16:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

PubMed

... links aren't working. Is PubMed down, or is it our template? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

PubMed is up but broken. --Una Smith (talk) 02:32, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Yep—it doesn't seem to be parsing PMID numbers; not our template, I just input some PMIDs into http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ and got nothing. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:35, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I hate it when Diberri goes down. It must be the most useful tool for WP:MED? —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 12:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Watching a category

Is there any way to "watch" a category so as to be notified if new articles are added? kilbad (talk) 13:20, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps not the way you are thinking, but the only way to keep track of changes automatically on any article is to 'watch' the article by clicking the button at the top of the page. This works for categories too but you have to check edit summaries or diffs to see the content changes. Unfortunately there isn't a simpler way... to my knowledge. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 17:40, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Watch is not very useful for categories, it only shows changes to the page itself. What comes closest is the related changes link in the toolbox on the left. It includes addition to the category (not deletions). You still have to go through the edit summaries for the details, popups can be very useful for that. --WS (talk) 18:49, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:MCOTW userbox

Using {{Collab-medicine}}, I've created a userbox to advertise the current MCOTW article. I introduce to you {{User-MCOTW}}, which looks like this:

This user invites you to improve Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the current WikiProject Medicine collaboration of the month.




If you choose to use it, it'll place you in Category:Medical collaboration of the week members.

—Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 13:24, 31 October 2008 (UTC)


What to do with dermatologic pharmacology

I have been recategorizing dermatologic content based on our prior discussion and per WP:DERM conversations. Today, I tried to bring more order to the Category:Dermatologic pharmacology and wanted to get some feedback. Most dermatologic pharmacology can be categorized based on the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System, specifically the ATC code D, so I did not want to redundantly add a category to all those pages when there is already a nice index (which I simply included on the category page). What do you think of the category page? What can be improved? What would you do differently? Also, on the talk page, I have tried to give some vague suggestions about what should be included in the category (i.e. tried to outline the scope of the category), but I think these "guidelines" for inclusion into this category need significant improvement. Could someone help me with this? kilbad (talk) 19:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Merge and redirect

Per this discussion, I've merged Monoamine Hypothesis with Chemical imbalance, and am hoping to redirect Monoamine Hypothesis to Chemical_imbalance#Monoamine_hypothesis. Any objections? Cosmic Latte (talk) 21:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. Next, the dopamine hypothesis from schizophrenia needs to be added to Chemical imbalance too. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Done! =) Cosmic Latte (talk) 08:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Now, should Dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia be left as a stand-alone article, or should that (like Monoamine Hypothesis) be merged with the new Chemical_imbalance#Dopamine_hypothesis? Cosmic Latte (talk) 19:44, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

User:Hgurling and Bipolar disorder

Requesting input here on some controversial edits. Cosmic Latte (talk) 20:57, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

MCOTW

JFW | T@lk 09:47, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Major depressive disorder FAC - more eyes needed

OK folks, I need some help in getting consensus - Major depressive disorder is at FAC, with some intial supports but has some issues with prose in the causes section - can it be made less jargony without losing meaning, and double checking of references - concerns have been raised abotu the use of sources. I am doing what I can but some new eyes would be good. Finally one reviewer questions the use of the word "history" as in medical history or psychiatric history in its use to take information on a patient's current circumstances in the clinical assessment section. This article was a lot of work and I am feeling a little burnt out at the moment.Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:20, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Elective

Elective could use some medical eyes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:17, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Myocardial Mechanics

Welcome Wiki in facilitation of an encyclopedic means in proposing extension of the Wiggers Diagram. It is my hope that this Wiki encyclopedic concept readily lends itself to free editing by many other interested parties.

Heart mechanics may be mathematically divided into halves Systole and Diastole.

A. Systole 

   1. Time definition - Time aortic and pulmonary valves open to time closed
        a. Physiologic valvular coaption time
        b. Pathologic valvular coaptation time 
   2. Time phases of systole
        a. Atrial systole
        b. Ventricular systole
   3. Systolic Length-Tension Relationships Starling
   4. Volumetric definition Frank
        a. Boundary detection
        b. Cardiac Output
        c. Ejection Fraction = End Systolic Volume ESV/ End Diastolic Volume EDV
             1. LVEF
             2. RVEF
   5. Systolic compliance - maximum arterial pressure during contraction of the heart
   6. Blood/vascular perfusion out of myocardial vascular tree
        a. Physiologic myocardial blood perfusion
        b. Ischemic myocardial blood perfusion
   7. Autonomic influence/electrical perfusion - Sympathetic discharge of the sinoatrial and atrioventricular nodes and Purkinge tree.
        a. Atrial systolic electrical signal - P wave
        b. Ventricular systolic electrical signal - QRS Interval

B. Diastole closely linked to the term Windkessel 

   1. Time definition - Time AV and PV close until opened.
        a. Physiologic Coaptation Time
        b. Pathologic Coaptation Time
   2. Time phase of diastole
        a. Atrial diastole
        b. Ventricular diastole - electrical signal ST segment
   3. Diastolic Length Tension Relationships
   4. Volumetric definition
        a. Boundary detection
        b. Cardiac Input
   5. Diastolic compliance - minimum arterial pressure during relaxation of the heart
   6. Blood perfusion into the myocardial vascular tree
   7. Autonomic influence - Parasympathetic discharge is governed by the vagus nerve and the thoracic spinal accessory ganglia.--lbeben 00:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Leslie, why exactly are you posting this here? From your previous edits on heart failure I conclude that you seem to have a fairly non-standard perspective on cardiac physiology. Perhaps it would be helpful if you provided sources for your views. JFW | T@lk 03:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
I do not understand the second sentence in this section. Can you clarify? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

PubMed queries for strings not returning results

I noticed over at mucoid plaque, the first reference is to a PubMed query which shows no results for "mucoid plaque". I noticed today while working on Simple Green that searching for "simple green" returns no results, even though there is an entry in there with the title "Toxic effects of crude oil combined with oil cleaner simple green on yolk-sac larvae and adult rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss" (bolding mine). Anyone know what is going on with this? II | (t - c) 08:32, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

This is very innapropriate referencing. I have discussed the matter further on that article. Using search strings to prove a point is a form of original research.--ZayZayEM (talk) 04:54, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

pediculosis pubis

redirect —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.151.255.65 (talk) 21:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Asthma FAR

Asthma has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

ecolalia

does a redirect exist? 207.151.224.92 (talk) 05:05, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The word is echolalia; are you asking for a redirect from the misspelling? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:07, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Rehab articles need some rehab, please?

Hello, have a question I'm hoping the project can help with. I have three possibly related (in subject matter) articles that probably need a new home. I have no doubt the topic is notable and there may be a more comprehensive article that someone has developed that covers these topics, I'm not sure what it would be called to find it. The articles in question are:

If there's a better place I should be asking this, please let me know. I'll watchlist this page for a bit if there's anything further I need to add to the discussion. Thanks! StarM 22:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

  • I would merge anything recoverable to Neurorehabilitation, sounds best, but honestly don't know what is more prevalent in English --ZayZayEM (talk) 05:44, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Rehabilitation (neuropsychology) and neurorehabilitation are not the same. First is included in second: neuropsychology is specifically the rehabilitation of cognitive functions while neurorehabilitation also includes voice, physical changes... Neurocognitive rehabilitation and rehabilitation (neuropsychology) are probably the same. I' am a neuropsychologist, so any doubts you have feel free to ask. Regarding guttmann istitut: even if they had a conflict of intereset the info is probably right, since they are the best rehabilitation centre in Spain: clean up the links, but leave any usable info. Best regards --Garrondo (talk) 10:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. The issue with the Guttman information is that it's unsourced and probably a copyvio. A google doesn't help because it relates to more specific things that have that term in its name rather than the medical field. StarM 21:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

NPWT

Some might say this was extreme; but removing a whole bunch of tentative studies and re-writing based on a Cochrane review seems appropriate. Was it? I re-wrote based on the pubmed abstract, which seemed to be contradictory:

These data do not show that TNP significantly increases the healing rate of chronic wounds compared with comparators.Data on secondary outcomes such as infection rate, quality of life, oedema, hospitalisation and bacterial load were not reported. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: Trials comparing TNP with alternative treatments for chronic wounds have methodological flaws and data do demonstrate a beneficial effect of TNP on wound healing however more, better quality research is needed. PMID = 18646080

Anyone have any comments or advice? The page seems to attract a lot of spam. WLU (t) (c) (rules - simple rules) 20:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Category:Alternative medical systems

A user wants to rename Category:Alternative medical systems to Category:Whole medical systems as he says that is the NCCAM or something name for it. I would appreciate your opinion on the category's talk page or something, but I don't link to them or whatever page I'm on ends up in them lol, but you can put them in the search bar to find them. Sticky Parkin 22:54, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I think you can avoid that effect by putting a colon after the first pair of double-square brackets. Category:Alternative medical systems should be safe. (You won't see the colon unless you edit this section.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:49, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

pontine hemorrhage

can i argue for pontine hemorrhage getting its own article? it's one of the causes of pinpoint pupils (would nice to see a list of the causes of pinpoint pupils). and then be able to click on each link to get the mechanism of each cause. 207.151.255.65 (talk) 00:09, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd also like to see posterior synechia formation because I have no idea what that is either, yet it is listed in Pretest Pediatrics for causing pinpoint pupils. Just trying to make an argument for these articles to be added. I'm not "asking a question" 207.151.224.92 (talk) 01:23, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Rather than more articles, I think what is needed is more links between existing articles. The medical term for pinpoint (constricted) pupils is miosis. Miosis has a list of causes, including hemorrhage in the pons. Pons lacks a coherent section on related medical conditions. Perhaps you would like to start one? --Una Smith (talk) 20:00, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

pinpoint pupils

dialated

  • epinephrine
  • phenylephrine
  • topical antihistamines / vasoconstrictors
  • atropine-like agents
  • closed-angle glaucoma

Brain trauma peer review

I've submitted a peer review request for Traumatic brain injury and would really appreciate it if folks could offer comments. I'd also be interested to hear thoughts on the proposed merge from Head injury. Thanks much! delldot ∇. 01:14, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Dermatology portal | Task force update

  • Would it be ok to create a Portal:Dermatology to feature good derm content?
  • Also, I have posted an update regarding my work on the dermatology task force, and am always looking for more help and photos! kilbad (talk) 00:34, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
I'd advise against a portal. I'd instead recommend helping out at Portal:Medicine and featuring derm content there, it's pretty dead at the moment but I don't think we should go about creating sub-portals. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 08:37, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Would ask for revision of the Skin cancer article, which implicates use of sunscreen with skin cancer. In actuality, sun avoidance and sun protection are known to prevent skin carcinogenesis. Indeed, dozens of references showing substantial clinical, epidemiological, and experimental evidence directly linking sunlight exposure, notably UVB, to human skin carcinogenesis. Experimental data references include: Atillasoy,E.S., Elenitsas,R., Sauter,E.R., Soballe,P.W. and Herlyn,M. (1997) UVB induction of epithelial tumors in human skin using a RAG-1 mouse xenograft model. J. Invest. Dermatol., 109, 704–709.[ISI][Medline] Kripke,M.L. (1994) Ultraviolet radiation and immunology: something new under the sun-presidential address. Cancer Res., 54, 6102–6105.[Abstract/Free Full Text] Ziegler,A., Jonason,A.S., Leffell,D.J., Simon,J.A., Sharma,H.W., Kimmelman,J., Remington,L., Jacks,T. and Brash,D.E. (1994) Sunburn and p53 in the onset of skin cancer. Nature, 372, 773–776.[Medline] Setlow,R.B., Woodhead,A.D. and Grist,E. (1989) Animal model for ultraviolet radiation-induced melanoma: platyfish-swordtail hybrid. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 86, 8922–8926.[Abstract/Free Full Text] Robinson,E.S., VandeBerg,J.L., Hubbard,G.B. and Dooley,T.P. (1994) Malignant melanoma in ultraviolet irradiated laboratory opossums: initiation in suckling young, metastasis in adults and xenograft behavior in nude mice. Cancer Res., 54, 5986–5991.[Abstract/Free Full Text] Atillasoy,E.S., Seykora,J.T., Soballe,P.W., Elenitsas,R., Nesbit,M., Elder,D.E., Montone,K.T., Sauter,E. and Herlyn,M. (1998) UVB induces atypical melanocytic lesions and melanoma in human skin. Am. J. Pathol., 152, 1179–1186.[Abstract] —Preceding unsigned comment added by UVB101 (talk • contribs) 04:54, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Amino acid

The article failed in Good article reassessment and should be set back in the quality scale! A GAN is underway for Amino acid to get it back to GA!.--Stone (talk) 14:43, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Back to adding content

  • I would like to add an article that discusses the approach to dermatologic diagnosis. Would this type of article be ok to add, and, if so, what should it be called? kilbad (talk) 03:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Something like Dermatological diagnosis or Diagnosis in dermatology would be fine. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 07:38, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
The challenge with such an article will be to keep it from being a how-to article.
Why don't you discuss your plans for this new article at the derm task force's talk page? The people that are most likely to be helpful with it doubtless have it on their watchlist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:56, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Sexually dimorphic nucleus

The page about Sexually dimorphic nucleus gives a nice explanation of homosexuality, but is not linked nor on the page about Biology and sexual orientation nor on the page about Prenatal hormones and sexual orientation, why not?

As the article gives an explanation of homosexuality, I question that it is ranked of lower importance.

The page about Sexually dimorphic nucleus also lacks additional information about the role of that organ in other orientations like bisexuality, sadism or pedophilia. The theory, that the activity during the "consummatory phase" is "highly stereotyped" should be rethought, if it would be, how can there be such varieties of sexual preference?

89.196.78.4 (talk) 10:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

  1. Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).
  2. Articles about physiology, development, etc., are always of low importance to this project, because this project's main focus is on diseases, medical conditions, and treatments. See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Assessment#Importance_scale for more information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:56, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Any admins home?

I posted a problem with an editor at Physician assistant to ANI, but it's largely been ignored (with the rather patronizing suggestion that perhaps he just doesn't understand requests like "Please STOP deleting information" because of his poor English skills), and the editor is still doing his drive-by deletions of the same couple of sentences. The edit war needs to stop. Anybody out there willing to help? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an admin but I can see from the article history what is going on. I can put the article on my watchlist and help out. Also I think that you can get him on the WP:3RR and report him to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR. That usually works if you format the diffs correctly. —Mattisse (Talk) 02:36, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
P.S. And keep putting warnings on his talk page so that it is documented that you tried to reason with him when an admin does take a look. That's one of the things it is good to show at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RR—that on his page and on the article talk page you have tried to reason with him. —Mattisse (Talk) 02:43, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany

The article Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany is within WikiProject Medicine. It is a featured article. I am desperately seeking more regular contributors for further suggestion on this article. Thanks. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 23:04, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Am I the only one who thinks it's kinda pushing it to include this under WPMED? Sure it's against tobacco but by those standards it could be in WikiProject Pharmacology too. It's almost solely a history article. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 23:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I dunno. Actually I added this under WikiProject Health. But WikiProject Health is an inactive project. This is why SandyGeorgia replaced the inactive project with a related active project. The article Smoking ban is also under WikiProject Medicine. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 23:46, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Health has been renamed Health and fitness and is making an effort at reviving itself. There are a lot of borderline items currently filed under this project, and often it's because we're the closest related functional project. While I'm sure we'd be happy to help with the medical end, most of this is social history, and perhaps a history group would be even more helpful. Also, it might be worth getting in touch with MILHIST, since they doubtless cover everything else Nazi-related. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:52, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
It is better to have one large project. Wikipedia is surprisingly small, and often it can be difficult to draw even one or two people from a broad project like this. I agree that this one really stretches it, though, and it sems like the history wikiproject would be a better bet. Also, hopefully I don't offend, but my opinion is that there are more important articles which need attention. For example, heart disease is ugly. II | (t - c) 07:56, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
You could always MCOTW it... —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 09:29, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Original research notice relating to aspartame controversy

I'd appreciate some intellectually honest comments over at a NOR/N thread I've started entitled Food Chemical News source used in aspartame controversy. II | (t - c) 07:56, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Blood values as featured picture candidate

Reference ranges for some major blood tests, sorted by mass.

This reference ranges for blood tests-image is a candidate for featured pictures, but needs more votes. Please have a look at it's nomination page:

Your comments are appreciated. Mikael Häggström (talk) 12:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Mess at ADHD

If you've got an interest in reliable sources and/or ADHD, please let me invite you to join the fray at Talk:Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. There's a pretty ugly dynamic between the article's usual editors right now, and the addition of a few level-headed people might resolve things (and even improve the article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:35, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I would like to thank WhatamIdoing for mentioned this as article could definitely use some more eyes. It has very frustrating ever since I began editing. There is one editor Scuro who spends much of his time changing the rewording edits that are referenced to published research so that they no longer match the reference. Then edit wars when you correct it. Accuses you are edit warring. Threatens other editors with reprimands on a frequent basis. He an Vannin are friends and support one another.
I have lost my patient with these two editors a number of times. I have dealt with comments saying that NICE guildlines are "nice" but that since they controvince the American literature they "prove that the UK is far behind the USA in medical science" and "that UBC in not a world leading research center and therefore their research shouldn't be allowed" or "that since a source is 6 - 8 years out one should be able to use it" or "or that only two scientist agree that ADHD is controversial and it is probably even less then that" or "that Timmins since he is a Scientology and an antipschiatrist everything he publishes even in the British Journal of Psychiatry should be discounted" or " or that since Dr. Barkleys is a world leader in ADHD that one should be able to quote his personal web page or power point presentations and then I get attacked when I ask that people quote his published literature"
All this has happened with exclamations that I should deal with content rather then editors. A least three other editors have had this problems. I have asked for more eyes many months ago at the WP Med page. I also brought forwards an ANI.

P.S. I have paraphrased the comments.

--Doc James (talk) 20:35, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Here is a list of pages in which the dispute unfolds.

ADHD

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder controversies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_55#WRT_ADHD_Can_one_cite_web_based_information_from_the_Mayo_Clinic.3F

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive481#The_ADHD_article_and_Scuro

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-10-09 Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/jmh649

User talk:Scuro

--Doc James (talk) 21:01, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I have paraphrased the comments.-I'd characterize it as a first class misrepresentation :). If someone has a medical background and deals with ADHD patients on a consistent basis, your assistance at jmh649's RFC would be appreciated.Wikipedia:Requests for comment/jmh649 It will be tough slogging.--scuro (talk) 04:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like time for Wikipedia:Mediation. (Mediation is not about majority rule, but about reaching consensus.) --Una Smith (talk) 06:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Neonatal jaundice

Neonatal jaundice is pretty bad, and seems like it shouldn't be. Anyone want to have a go at it? WLU (t) (c) (rules - simple rules) 21:57, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

most of the obgyn articles and neonatal peds articles are not written from an MD standpoint. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.43.214.71 (talk) 08:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
They shouldn't be; Wikipedia is written for a general audience. See WP:MTAA. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 23:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Brain tumour

Brain tumor is a pretty awful page. Anyone want the challenge? WLU (t) (c) (rules - simple rules) 23:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Basic topic

I've found an interesting cluster of undersourced and poorly coordinated articles, and think it might be interesting to consider their proper disposition. They are:

Any ideas about how to organize these? Any good sources for this concept? I'm leaning towards a merge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:34, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I just had to laugh at these findings of yours. Soooo typical. Disorder (medicine) seems like a good title, at least, if you disregard everything in the article, and the huge (understatment) template at the bottom. It then can be broken down into Mental disorder and Physical disorder. Perhaps you want one more formal page, Disorder (medicine), and one page among the others where people can put layman type stuff like political correctness issues. At a glance, without delving, most of the five different definitions of Morbidity seem at best only loosely right, and repetitious, or wrong. Does Morbidity ever mean disability? —Mattisse (Talk) 00:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
If you're going to merge, be very careful about it, and keep as many of the references as possible. These terms are not synonyms, and the decision about which term to use can be emotionally charged. --Arcadian (talk) 02:52, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
I have no interest in losing information. Does anyone have any ideas about a decent source? I don't really want to resort to regular dictionaries, and I'm not sure that the typical textbook or journal article would bother to define something so basic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:17, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't think a global merge would help. There needs to be a differentiation between medical terminology and layman terms. Some of those would likely be defined in general textbooks, like "disease", "disorder". Some, like "sickness", "ailment" and "malady" I think are just general dictionary terms used by laymen and are not used in medical lingo to mean anything specific. However, lay people and the general press use these terms, so there should be places where people who are not professionals can report information relevant to their concerns (e.g. political correctness issues). —Mattisse (Talk) 15:38, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I would start by developing / expanding entries for each of these terms on Wiktionary. I find that helps to clarify things. Get the terms sorted out, then the concepts follow. Also, each of these terms has a history (an etymology) that is somewhat apart from the history of the related concepts. To do a good job, some heavy duty sourcing will be necessary. Think history of medicine. --Una Smith (talk) 18:50, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I've added a new 'terminology' section to Disease, which I think helps quite a bit. As a result, the Morbidity and Disorder (medical) stubs now redirect to Disease.
Sickness is a dab page and can stay that way; I'm not sure what to do about Illness, which is positioned as the patient's perception of their (e.g.,) smallpox, which is distinct from the smallpox itself. My plan for the next little while is to not do very much to these articles and see if this much will be stable and settled before moving on.
I have also 'discovered' that we don't have an article on Functional disorder, which seems like a fairly popular term for neurological conditions. If someone feels competent to start a stub there, that would be great. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Huzzah! Huzzah!

Osteochondritis dissecans has been passed as a GA article! Onwards to FAC, and - with your help - FA status! Jump on the bandwagon and start reviewing! :-) FoodPuma 23:34, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Well done and congratulations. JFW | T@lk 10:34, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Further comments welcome here. Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:48, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Missing Article Trophy

The trophy has passed to WhatamIdoing (talk · contribs). Congratulations, WhatamIdoing, and think about Did you know! --Una Smith (talk) 07:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not quite sure that article should count... (I know: "no drama" is one of the rules.) I was just trying to centralize information that was scattered across several other articles, as part of my campaign to keep Fatigue (medical) from getting stuffed full of the names of unimportant military officers.
At any rate, you should all consider the threshold for the next award to be quite low! Earn yourself a beautiful trophy -- pick one of these seven thousand stubs or fix a red link today! WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:41, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

length drugs positive on utox

would be nice to have an article on how long various drugs on utox stay positive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.40.254.253 (talk) 17:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, you could try the reference desk or check at drug test. C'mon, tell us... What have you taken? JFW | T@lk 18:12, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Wouldn't that information be included in each individual article? A person that abuses one drug is unlikely to be looking for information on any other drugs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Well I have heard rumors of parties were everyone brings there pills. They put them in a bowl and people take them. Weather or not this is just urban legend I do not know.http://books.google.ca/books?id=dFRd2MMrtiUC&pg=PA312&lpg=PA312&dq=pill+parties&source=web&ots=Z42SUx_oKi&sig=0iwrP4F64t2Fbm2JXMLM0iVXixo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPA312,M1 From this book The Pursuit of Oblivion By Richard Davenport-Hines Doc James (talk) 20:06, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

history of perscription number system

you know how docs write the number 1, 2, 3 on perscriptions? it looks like roman numeral but it is different. what is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.40.12.37 (talk) 18:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Have you looked at medical prescription? Might it just be doctors' handwriting? In the UK, most prescriptions are now computer-generated. JFW | T@lk 18:12, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Orphaned article

Systemic inflammation is a short stub that has no incoming links, and it seems generally neglected. It needs some love, but I'm not sure what would be best:

--BeardWand (talk) 23:17, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, the concept of "systemic inflammation" is quite distinct from SIRS. It refers mainly to elevated blood levels of cytokines such as IL-1, IL-6 and TNF alpha. An independent article is needed. Systemic inflammation is related to a number of disease processes such as atherosclerosis and osteoporosis. JFW | T@lk 18:12, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
I like option two, turning it into a {{main}} article. But is this even the right title? The first sentence specifically names chronic systemic inflammation, and presumably there's also an acute case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

What is the definition of "skin," "integumentary system"

Yeah, this is actually a matter of contention right now. What is the definition of "skin," and is it different than that of "integumentary system." Find the discussion here, and please consider contributing. kilbad (talk) 22:27, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Post-viral cough

Can someone please expand on this topic. RE: Post-viral cough. Unsigned, now signing to assist in bot archiving JFW | T@lk 10:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

OHS terminology

During my quest to improve obesity hypoventilation syndrome I was wondering when the terminology changed from "Pickwickian syndrome" to the more current descriptive term. This would be of relevance to the historical section. Does anyone have access to PMID 10450601? Does that article officially advocate the descriptive term? JFW | T@lk 10:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Major depressive disorder FAC restarted

Just so everyone is aware, the FAC for Major depressive disorder has been restarted at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Major_depressive_disorder. Cosmic Latte (talk) 02:25, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Image request

Could someone create a better alternative of Image:Guaiac01.jpg? A camera phone is not the best option for encyclopedic photogtaphy... --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:39, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The subject is the Hemoccult brand of stool guaiac test. --Una Smith (talk) 16:51, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Spammy reinsertion of link at Asthma

Over the past month, three named accounts and three IPs have repeatedly inserted links at Asthma to http://www.azma.com. These additions have been reverted thirteen times by various editors, and at least two detailed discussions have taken place, but the accounts continue to push the disputed link. I have opened a discussion at Talk:Asthma#Azma.com; input requested there. Maralia (talk) 16:14, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

ok 10 points (and kudos) for any who can think of a plainer english way to say neuroplasticity...

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
removed bit anyway, wasn't integral to (large) article

thisaway...or can't we. Can we do it without sacrificing meaning? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:30, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Peer reviews need attention

This is a call for anyone willing to peer review medical related articles. There are numerous articles still needing comments and reviews at the peer review backlog. Obviously with these kinds of topics a large number of editors will not be able to provide adequate reviews. Any help is really appreciated. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 07:15, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

RfC: Mass removal of "Category:Alternative medicine" from most articles

I have started an RfC: RfC: Mass removal of "Category:Alternative medicine" from most articles. Please comment on this important subject. -- Fyslee / talk 17:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm replying with this to everywhere Fyslee has put this request, though you are of course welcome to comment on what he's created. I need to write where he has put this because the title of this thing, started without Fyslee bothering to talk to me about it at all on my talk page, is inaccurate because as I would have told him if he asked, all I'm doing is moving things into the subcategories, (where they should be) which are still in the category. The reason I'm doing this is because at the top of the page it says (the bolding is the page's, not mine, and it's also in a red box This category may require frequent maintenance to avoid becoming too large. It should list very few, if any, article pages directly and should mainly contain subcategories. So I did what it said. Controversial and shocking "mass deletion" eh?:):):):):) Sticky Parkin 14:30, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

MCOTW time

This one could do with some sorting out. Big range of information, from tololysis to late effects. JFW | T@lk 00:03, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Purdue Pharma

There's a grass roots campaign to add some negative material to this article. I've fixed it a bit, so at least is more accurate, but still find the last section off-topic. I don't care a lot about this, just saw it reported on WP:COI/N. More eyes would be good. Pcap ping 22:27, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. It seems that the issue is Purdue's marketing, which misled physicians and the public regarding OxyContin's addictiveness and abuse potential. There were several legal judgements recently against Purdue and some of its executives on this basis - all well and good, and certainly notable and deserving of coverage on Wikipedia. Then there is also an activist using Wikipedia to "increase public awareness" of the verdict - not so good, in that Wikipedia isn't the right venue for advocacy. I think we can cover the legal issues appropriately, because they're well-described in reliable sources. MastCell Talk 23:52, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Meningioma

I've started a complete re-write of the Meningioma article. If anyone would wish to collaborate, help would be appreciated. Djma12 (talk) 22:39, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Addiction-recovery schools

Are high schools and colleges which are dedicated to recovering addicts part of this project? If so, please add Serenity High School. Thanks. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:17, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so, unless the school has pioneered a particular highly innovative treatment that has been adopted universally. This WikiProject already has a very wide scope, including all human anatomy and physiology articles as well as medical conditions and treatments. JFW | T@lk 19:34, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
I have to second JFW here. We have an incredibly wide scope as it is, I think this would be pushing the boat out a little too far. Perhaps Wikipedia:WikiProject Health is worth a shot? —Matt (talk · contribs · email) 23:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

John Najarian

I surmise that this WikiProject is far less active than the mathematics WikiProject, since I just created the article titled John Najarian, which is quite remote from my usual interests, connected in this case primarily by my attention to the articles about the University of Minnesota. It's a stub and an orphan. Could others help by adding appropriate links to it from other articles and by expanding it? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:16, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'd say that this project is quite active, but that WPMED considers articles about individual physicians to be of low importance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:50, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Drug Information in Wikipedia

is there any discussion on doi:10.1345/aph.1L474 in wp? -- Cherubino (talk) 16:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Found Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Pharmacology#Clauson_study - Cherubino (talk) 16:37, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
The latest anti Wikipedia thrust is "Wikipedia often omits important drug information", "Drug Information Often Left Out On Wikipedia", etc. In Drug Information Often Left Out On Wikipedia says "If people went and used this as a sole or authoritative source without contacting a health professional...those are the types of negative impacts that can occur." So this non expert on statistics and human habits in informing themselves is making unsupported assertions about Wikipedia based on a few articles he reviewed. The news article does mention some Wikipedia articles that could benefit from a review, however. -- Suntag ☼ 16:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
I added a sketch on this to Medscape. --Una Smith (talk) 16:48, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
I dunno; if I were reviewing the paper, I'd question the appropriateness of comparing Wikipedia to MDR. MDR is a technical reference for a professional medical audience. Wikipedia is a general-knowledge encyclopedia. Apples and oranges. No doubt the PDR also contains more complete drug info that Wikipedia, but you see where I'm going.

The authors state: The comparator database had to be a freely accessible general drug information database. Why a drug information database? They don't really explain this decision, which I think biases the rest of the study. The "sample questions" are similarly skewed - they represent clinical questions that a physician might ask, rather than common questions that a patient or layperson might seek answers to.

I'd be much more curious how Wikipedia's coverage of pharmaceuticals stacks up to, say, Britannica or Encarta - that is, to projects which occupy the same reference niche. I'm somewhat tempted to write a letter to the editor. MastCell Talk 19:16, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I tink they missed the policy of wikipedia is not a how to and the point of medmos to exclude dosages to this end, so the summary that wikipedia is a good general guide for consumers but should not be used for prescription information seems like we are getting it right! LeeVJ (talk) 19:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's a good point - WP:MEDMOS explicitly indicates we should default to omitting dosage and titration info - for good reason: this is a general-knowledge encyclopedia, not a drug reference handbook. Yet the article faults Wikipedia for not including this info, which again stems from their confusion about Wikipedia's aims and niche. MastCell Talk 19:50, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Please do write a letter to the editor. I think it may help others get a better understanding of the medical coverage on wikipedia. Remember (talk) 20:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
I think we should nominate Fvasconcellos (talk · contribs) for this noble task. JFW | T@lk 21:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

<undent> Ah, just came here to give a headsup to an article I had found and disagreed with and have already emailled the author about... my letter was as follows, and I await their reply:


Dear Kevin Clauson

I read with interest your conclusions at http://www.theannals.com/cgi/content/abstract/aph.1L474v1 on Wikipedia's medicine information. However I think the comparison was always going to be unequal, the conclusions predictable & unsurprising, and the study flawed for assuming a US-centric perspective.

Your implied criticism of "Wikipedia performed poorly regarding information on dosing, with a score of 0% versus the MDR score of 90.0%" is unfair, indeed this result is a positive endorsement that wikipedia's policy of not give dosage information is being correctly followed !

The two sources are not equivalent: Wikipedia is a non-specialist general encyclopaedia and I would no more rely upon its description of the internal combustion engine to service my car, than the finer details of how to self-medicate.

Wikipedia on dosage details
Wikipedia's guideline of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(medicine-related_articles)#Drugs explicitly states 'Do not include dose and titration information except when they are notable or necessary for the discussion in the article' and goes on to state 'Wikipedia is not an instruction manual or textbook and should not include instructions, advice (legal, medical or otherwise) or "how-to"s'

Indeed the Medical disclaimer should be carefully noted (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Medical_disclaimer)

So except for rare occasions, it is not thought appropriate to give dosage details, and thereby a potential patient must seek more appropriate advice elsewhere (instructions on the label or patient information leaflet for a start, and more specifically from one's pharmacist or doctor should be encouraged).

Wikipedia has international reach
There is a general point that an international reader should not exclusively seek advice from Medscape or MedlinePlus, for these are American sites and can only give advice on American licensing dosages and warnings. Wikipedia meanwhile has a global coverage and licensed dosages in America may be very different to say here in the United Kingdom, or elsewhere in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa.

A good example is for the article Aspirin, where the dosage notes are carefully phrased as "For adults doses are generally taken four times a day for fever or arthritis, with doses near the maximal daily dose used historically for the treatment of rheumatic fever. For the prevention of myocardial infarction in someone with documented or suspected coronary artery disease, much lower doses are taken once daily." Previously precise values were very deliberately removed.

Here in the UK such low-dosage prophylaxis is typically 75mg, but I gather rather different preparation strengths are used in America, hence no set value is "correct"; indeed http://www.medscape.com/druginfo/dosage?drugid=21047&drugname=Aspirin+Low+Dose+Oral&monotype=default in its statement of
“Myocardial Reinfarction Prevention take 1 tablet (81 mg) by oral route once daily
take 2 tablets (162 mg) by oral route once daily
take 1 tablet (325 mg) by oral route once daily”
is simply totally “wrong” for a UK reader.

Target audiences
Medscape, whilst free to use, is not meant for the general public, and your comment reported by Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE4AN7BO20081124?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews of "You still probably want to go to medlineplus.gov or medscape.com for good quality information that you can feel confident in," seems problematic:
a) Medscape describes itself at http://www.medscape.com/public/about as "Medscape offers specialists, primary care physicians, and other health professionals the Web's most robust and integrated medical information and educational tools." So nothing is implied as being a resource for patients to use, its value to yourself as a Professor of Pharmacy Practice or myself as a General Practitioner entirely misses the point that it is not meant for a general readership and nor therefore is comparison with Wikipedia equitable.
b) By comparison, MedlinePlus is an appropriate source to direct the American public to, for it seeks that "Health professionals and consumers alike can depend on it for information that is authoritative and up to date" http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/aboutmedlineplus.html But again, this may be "wrong" in details for a more international audience.

Conclusion on Wikipedia scope
Notwithstanding the above points (that the outcome of your study was a foregone conclusion), I rather think your conclusion of “Wikipedia has a more narrow scope, is less complete, and has more errors of omission” is misphrased in all three subclauses:

  • Wikipedia has a vastly broader scope, covering as it will drug development history, the researchers and companies involved, links to basic biophysiological topics as well as all the non-medical pages in its collection. Neither Medscape nor MedlinePlus have anything on general history or the arts and are thus websites of narrow scope.
  • Wikipedia therefore has a greater breadth, but I agree often limited to some of the specific depths of information coverage.
  • Finally your study has not found “errors of omission” which implies thoughtless missing gaps, but rather a reaffirmation of a positive compliance with not offering medical advice.

Yours truly,


David Ruben


Can anyone though directly write to the editor of the journal ? It is not as if the study was "wrong" per se, just that it seems an ill conceived comparison with naïve misguided conclusions. David Ruben Talk 23:51, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I think we should all write a letter to the Editor together, and quickly, because there is usually a time limit for such submissions. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:07, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
The time limit for Ann Pharmacother is six months AFAIK. I've drafted a brief letter and contacted JFW about this—you should get in touch with him. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:18, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I saw this thread linked on MastCell's talk page. The letter seems okay, but you may want to reduce or eliminate the 2nd section (about international dosages). It's a bit redundant given that the section right above it precludes including dosage information to begin with. You could use as shorter mention of the "international" argument to support the policy however. You could also mention that MDR has very little information for drugs not commonly used in the U.S. Two examples that came to my mind are furazolidone (only interactions and contraindications are listed on MDR, but nothing is said about usage), and drotaverine (no info on MDR). The conclusion could be simplified along the lines "Wikipedia has a greater breadth of articles, but covers medications in less depth as matter of policy". My 2cents. Pcap ping 18:48, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Entirely agree with your points :-) but I had already sent my email before coming here to wikipedia and realising a thread already started. David Ruben Talk 17:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I've had a thoughtful email reply from Kevin Clauson to my above letter, arguing well for some of the study's design decisions and the paper's conclusions (I don't agree with all points but at least I understand and appreciate better this external perspective). I'm seeking permission to repost his replies here, as they are worthy of consideration and for reflecting on our policies; at the very least he highlights variability in articles (which I think we already know about to some extent). On other points, we may of course decide that Wikipedia policies & guidelines are as good as they can be worded and that Wikipedia will remain inperfect in a world where patients will seek advice whatever guidence/disclaimers we state. David Ruben Talk 15:56, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the failure to mention the Wikipedia policy on dosage information shows a bit of weakness in the Clauson article, and David Ruben's example on Aspirin dosage in international contexts is interesting. Also the wording of "more narrow scope" in the conclussion is based on the narrow idiosyncratic definition of "scope" used in the article (presence of answer to drug related question) rather the meaning of "scope" in other contexts. However, the article addresses other issues in Wikipedia, e.g., drug interactions, contraindications and drug issues in connection with pregnancy. These are areas were Wikipedia has omissions compared to Medscape (according to the article). In my oppinion the article also make an ok argument that consumers are actually using Wikipedia as a resource for health information, and the authors indeed cite Wikipedia as "a project that attempts to summarize all human knowledge". So whether Wikipedians do not attempt to make Wikipedia a drug reference some consumers and healthcare practioners may actually use it as such. — fnielsen (talk) 13:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Fnielsen, well stated, especially the last point, and indeed that expanded upon in the emails I've had from Kevin Clauson; who has written back agreeing for me to repost his emails here. I think there was much general discussion in the article that we might all agree are important issues that have been discussed before, and points raised in our further discussion I think are worthy of consideration, or at least a starting point for fresh reflection. (PS if anyone can suggest a better method of making this available in WT:MED, eg as a subpage (yuk), then do chip in) David Ruben Talk 23:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Clauson e-mail exchange

From: Kevin Clauson...
Sent: 29 November 2008 01:21
To: 'Ruben David...

David,

Thank you for your interest in our work. I am unsure if you wrote your email with the intent of soliciting a response or exclusively to share your perspective. However, since it differs from most of the other critical emails I have received (in that it is both well thought out and devoid of the personal attacks and foul language of what is borderline 'hate mail'), my working assumption is that you would like a response. Thus, I will do my best to address the general and specific concerns you outlined.

Overall approach
I would like to point out is that this is not intended to be a negative piece about Wikipedia, nor am I an opponent of it as a philosophy or tool. In fact, in putting the team together, I specifically solicited the involvement of someone who is, at minimum, a wiki enthusiast and possibly an unabashed advocate (Maged Boulos). Maged is actually active enough that he started to correct the errors he found in the drug entries in Wikipedia during the study, but I asked him to cease until the assessment was completed so that we did not act as our own confounder. I also recently spoke at a Medicine 2.0 conference and briefly mentioned this Wikipedia study. I was similarly chastised by Rod Ward (whose opinion I respect) and have since moved to try and see that any remaining errors in Wikipedia that we came across was resolved. This is the same approach I have used in a number of other database evaluations where we contacted the database publishers to alert them to discrepancies we encountered. Additionally, the article did not categorically denounce the use of Wikipedia for drug information; it suggested that a more rationale approach is its use as a point of engagement for consumers.

Flawed comparison/comparator
Agreed, the two sources are not perfectly equivalent. However, part of the impetus of this study was real world practice. And when someone searches online for information about their atorvastatin or their etanercept or their benazepril...Encyclopedia Britannica is not going to be the first result and it probably won't even be in the first 100 results - but Wikipedia will. Choices had to be made regarding the comparator and I am comfortable with our rationale and selection. Additionally, the strength of the findings about Wikipedia stands on its own. Even purposefully selecting a generous comparator for Wikipedia that would have yielded a smaller chasm between the two would not have changed the fact that Wikipedia only provided 40% of the information sought.

Charge of US-centric perspective
Guilty as charged. In fact it took prompting from my co-author from the WHO to at least point out that we should list the limitation of only evaluating the English version of Wikipedia in the article. While I have worked and presented in international venues regarding issues of e-Health, my default is healthcare in the U.S.; consequently it may have benefited the article to point out the inherent related issues with extrapolation. Having said that, I most certainly do not think it makes the study flawed. I absolutely stand behind the methods and results. I do acknowledge that the results may be less specific to an international audience.

Dosage details
I will again bear the brunt of this criticism for not including Wikipedia's guidelines regarding dosage in the article. However, while I believe the Wikipedia policy to be well-intentioned, I wonder if it should be revisited. As part of my duties, I operate a Drug Information Center and over the years have received a number of calls relating to patients self medicating with prescription drugs after using online sites (not necessarily Wikipedia) as their sole information source in doing so. These patients typically are not brought to our attention until the point where something negative has happened. While I am not offering these anecdotal reports as 'evidence', there are case reports of this type of occurrence (J Am Pharm Assoc 2007 Jul-Aug;47(4):436-42), articles by researchers exploring aspects such as sharing and borrowing prescription medications (J Women's Health 2008 Sep;17(7):1073-80), and my other collaborative work with individuals whose efforts in the sociobehavioral aspects all lead me to question if Wikipedia isn't doing a disservice by electing not to provide basics such as maximum dosages? I don't know what the best answer is to that question as I have undoubtedly not given it as much thought as Wikipedia contributors have, but believing that the intended purpose of something precludes it from being used in other ways does not necessarily make it so.

International reach
I believe you are referring to my recommendations made in response to the reporter rather than the article itself. A reporter who identified herself as being from a US news agency called me and asked some questions. I gave responses based on that audience. Given that, I believe my suggestions regarding Medlineplus.gov and the Patient Handouts in Medscape Drug Reference are perfectly sensible. In the past I have written, cited, and been quoted listing additional consumer-centric sources of drug information as well. In this case, the suggested sources in the piece were fewer.

Target audience
a) The Patient Handouts in Medscape Drug Reference reflect very closely what is found in the other consumer sites under the WebMD umbrella that incorporates them all. However, as the MDR has been evaluated in past studies and the others have not, this adds to the confidence in that source.

b) Again, I was asked by an American reporter who self-identified as being from an American company, so I would assert my US-centric responses were right on target.

Conclusion on Wikipedia scope
These are the areas where I disagree with you most fervently.

1) Within the confines of the phrase drug information as it was used in the article (e.g., that as mentioned in the Pew Report, etc.), Wikipedia absolutely had a more narrow scope.

2) Rare common ground...

3) Let's ignore the dosage category for the moment as it only accounted for 10 of the 48 omitted items. So even if you maintained there were only 38 errors of omission (versus purposeful omission), there were still drug entries that were missing vital safety information about interactions, cautions, side effects, etc.. If all safety information were omitted from drug entries as part of a standing (albeit incomprehensible) policy, you could even make the case that those were purposeful and not errors of omission. However, the variability was enormous as there were multiple entries that went into great depth about safety issues and others than ignored it completely. I do not understand what possible intended use for Wikipedia would rationalize a blanket omission of safety information? If you reject that it is a blanket and purposeful omission, then the data supports that some entries purposefully include it while others either purposefully (e.g., the cases of pharmaceutical companies) or unintentionally omit it.

Summary
We just celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, so I will be thankful that so many have taken interest in this work. A number of Wikipedia advocates have been critical of aspects of this paper, while others have embraced elements of the results such as that it provides some of the "first scientific proof that the editing process improves entries" (their words not mine). I do appreciate carefully considered and constructive criticism, but would expect those critics to be similarly open to a healthy debate on the subject, rather than simply having an agenda to push. I hope you are on the healthy debate side.

Cheers,

Kevin

P.S. You are welcome to follow-up on any issues with me you feel remain unresolved.

From: David Ruben
Sent: Sun 30/11/2008 23:23
To: 'Kevin Clauson ...

Kevin,

Many thanks for taking the time to respond and help expand on some of the thought provoking issues, I was indeed trying to be constructive and hopefully on the “healthy debate side”. Very sad to hear of the other type of email you have received though.

To be even more positive, I thought your paper’s discussion over the nature of wikis and why there are problems relying on included data (when included) was well thought out and articulated (e.g. if the version of the aspirin article I view is one that has just been vandalized to have maximum dose changed to state 4 tablets every 2 hours, safe to give same dose in children, and always safe to take with warfarin… then problems are more than likely if this followed by a patient).

Many of the issues the paper covered are already appreciated by those who contribute to the Medical Wikiproject, but others are from a perspective that I don’t think our past internal discussions may have considered. Therefore I wonder if you would agree to me posting up your email reply (below) on the Medical Wikiproject discussion page so that other interested editors can consider further the points raised.

  • It is for the very problems of not having moderators checking every edit submission, and need to not restrict dosage levels to a single country, that the guideline not to include dosages was set up.
  • However as you point out there is variability in articles adhering to that, and even more variation in how much side-effect & drug-interaction details are included. That variability perhaps might lead lay readers to assume that where no interactions are included that is precisely because there are no such concerns that could/should be included, and this assumption made upon the basis that other articles looked at do include such details.
  • Often no mention is made, because there is nothing unique in the side-effects or interaction profile of a drug compared to others in its class, and therefore the details are within the article on the overall class of drug, the details not being separately notable within the articles on many specific members of a class.
  • If articles were to uniformly mention major interactions and side effects, then the question arises as to what threshold of risk/likelihood should be included; inclusion of everything on a medication patient leaflet would not make for encyclopaedia articles, for the target audience is meant to be a general reader and not patients looking for “how to” instruction & advice.
  • However as you well point out, whatever may be Wikipedia’s own stated warnings, guidance & disclaimers, this can be separate from how lay-patients nevertheless seek information on the internet.
    • I think this is a major challenge for medicine/pharmacy to help ensure patients have a better understanding of how to be selective & cautious in seeking information other than from more official channels (their doctor, pharmacist, actual drug information sheets, professional bodies, independent “semi-official” support groups), and to locate reliable vetted online sources.
    • Fairly clear guidelines exist in many schools and universities about student essays not citing Wikipedia itself (some are absolute that any such citing will result in an immediate “fail”), but rather that students should find and read the reliable original details (using Wikipedia only as preliminary introduction to a topic or pointer to lines of enquiry, but not directly relied upon) – perhaps as a society we need to get the wider public similarly cautious in the use of wikis/blogs and other similar sites of information ?

As a personal anecdote, I have had a few occasions where patients have come to me clutching sheets printed off the internet or quoting from their online sources that turned out to be Wikipedia articles I myself had either created or co-edited ! This whilst amusing had a mix of outcomes with some come to “demand” of me a treatment approach which is my normal practice anyway, or for an approach they had misread the article as having proposed (phrases such as “not”, “no evidence for” and “since disproved” not having been registered) . Amazing also how angry some get for my agreeing to their desired approach but declining to read the printout, or a somewhat dubious reaction when I show from the article’s edit history that they have been reading my own contributions (been suggested to me that the correct response is always to read the printout, nod thoughtfully, and then comment on how wise the article and its author must be - all the while trying to keep a straight face)

One of the problems with Wikipedia articles is to ensure that various items within any one article are of proportionate coverage (the “undue weight” guideline). Hence the most important encyclopaedic part of say Rosuvastatin is to mention that it is a statin and used to lower cholesterol levels, having campaigners fill the article with details of legal actions for cases of rhabdomyolysis does not make for good articles (yes it can cause this rarely but so can all statins, so worth mentioning been some debate as to whether higher risk than for other statins and unarguably that some additional restrictions/warnings been applied to it - at least here in UK must titrate up and refer to specialist after a certain dosage)

I wonder how you chose the specific facts that you sought to check for inclusion – was this based on needing to cover a range of details (i.e. breadth of examples), or a more practical issue of where such items had caused patient events (i.e. by real-world importance). Indeed was there a study protocol as to how to decide what minimum level of information was thought expected as worthy of inclusion – this might be a useful debating point for more general Wikipedia guideline tweaking (over and above merely seeking out the specific 38 non-dosage items located)

Yours truly,

David Ruben

From: Kevin Clauson...
Sent: Sun 30/11/2008 15:43
To: 'Ruben David...

David,

If you think it would be useful in continuing the discourse about the topic, you are welcome to post my response on your Wikiproject discussion board. Thanks also for providing the additional insight about the formulation of your policy about dosages on Wikipedia.

The ‘threshold of risk’ to determine inclusion of drug information is something everyone struggles with – database publishers, clinical decision support tool designers, etc. Even when something is strictly designed for healthcare professionals, problems with ‘alert fatigue’ have made people reconsider the wisdom of including every single theoretical interaction, etc. What one of the databases does is have a sort of ‘bottom line’ monograph as the one that is accessed by default, but then it has a link to a more in-depth version of each drug entry if the user so chooses…it is a pretty good hybrid solution that takes into account the time-pressed needs of a clinician, but recognizes that sometimes an additional layer is necessary. Have you guys considered partnering with any of those MediPedi/RxWiki types to do something like that? Maybe Wikipedia can serve as that baseline info that remains easy to navigate, but if the reader wants more, you guys can embed a link to their (I assume) more in-depth monograph style? That type of arrangement would also allow you to maintain your policies on things like dosage. I have no idea if that is feasible for you or vice versa…just a thought.

Regarding our approach to information/fact selection that we use for our evaluations – the most recent/best detailed/most easily accessible example is probably for infectious diseases, we used the ATC classifications in the WHO list of essential meds, but then also integrated US-specific data (full details in Category Design & Question Development at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/8/153/abstract). For our pediatrics database analysis, we similarly broke the questions into categories spanning neonates, infants, children, and adolescents. We also weighted the answer key to reflect a percentage of ‘by the book’ package insert-driven information and a percentage of clinical guideline-driven information (which, of course, can conflict). For the Wikipedia analysis, we basically let the literature drive our question development in terms of what categories should be included due to reported perceptions of importance. We also tried to get a representative sample of at-risk drugs, commonly employed drugs, approved and non-FDA approved uses, newly modified/released drugs (which is what Wikipedia ‘beat’ MDR in), etc. Of course, restricting the total to 80 has inherent limitations, which is why we pointed out it is really only a subset of possible questions in the article. Overall, given the number of questions, I believe the areas that were selected were appropriate.

I agree with you that we (‘we’ meaning both healthcare professionals and agencies) need to do a better job of preparing patients how to search and how they manage the health information they find online. Consumer health literacy is also a pet topic of mine, and one of our biggest challenges!

Kevin

Hope the above 2nd, 3rd & 4th emails of this sequence of interest. Any points or discussion we want to have on this either amongst ourselves or further with Kevin Clauson ? (I can pass on points, or would we prefer to write a joint letter to continue this discussion ?) David Ruben Talk 23:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Newer comments

For medications available by prescription only, why would the typical patient need to look up the dose online? It's written on the script; it's printed on the bottle's label. If you've got a prescription drug in hand, you've already got information about the dose directly from your own personal physician (or other professional with prescribing authority). So why is this considered important information? Lay people cannot self-prescribe prescription-only medications. I'm more concerned about the occasional omission of safety information: while I can (and routinely do) read the prescriber's inserts, the average person doesn't seem to be able to make sense of them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

The patient may want to know if their prescribed dose is low, normal, or high. For that, they need information other than their own prescription. When the prescription is filled, it may or may not come with a manufacturer insert or a pharmacy printout that includes this information. --Una Smith (talk) 03:27, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
There are many other issues at play here. Some patients may be mistrustful of manufacturer-provided information (gasp! Big Pharma!), others may turn to the Internet for convenience, and some (most?) may seek information on the drug before they have their prescription filled (I, for instance, usually do, although I usually turn to the scientific literature). Package inserts are also difficult to follow for those people who actually "take the trouble" to read them. WhatamIdoing—lay people most certainly can self-prescribe prescription-only medications. They shouldn't, but they can. There are many ways of obtaining prescription-only medication, even in the U.S. I currently live in a country where prescription-only medications can be purchased simply by walking into a drugstore and asking the duty pharmacist. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 12:09, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Yup. That used to be common in the US; I don't know how common it is now, though. Also, patients frequently do veto their prescriptions (by not getting them filled), and they may adjust the dosage themselves. Also, it is common for veterinarians to supply their reliable clients with drugs "just in case", for the client to have on hand and administer as needed with or without consulting the veterinarian. Physicians also may do this, especially for patients who live in or travel to remote places. --Una Smith (talk) 16:33, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
We can solve this by adding a Daily Med field to Template:Drugbox, as discussed at Template_talk:Drugbox#Revisit_of_this_issue. --Arcadian (talk) 03:58, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
Why not simply use {{DailyMed}}? I still don't know why this proposal got nowhere. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 12:12, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
And while we're at it, I personally think the National Cancer Institute's Drug Information Summaries] are really useful. They contain all U.S. trade names, approval status, indications, links to MedlinePlus, the NCI Dictionary (which is a very good source for investigational agents) and active and closed trials. Although we frequently link to RxList, Lexi-Comp, and MedlinePlus, I'd never found a single link to these summaries until today. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Accessibility

One thing that I think didn't come up in the email exchange regarding the choice of Medscape as comparator is accessibility. Medscape Drug Reference has several different tabs of drug information. The first is a bare list standard treatment dosages, adverse effects, interactions, etc. (the things that, for better or worse, Wikipedia doesn't want and actively discourages without integration into appropriate context). The most Wikipedia-like part is the "Drug Monograph". However, to access the monograph, one must register, which is free but has no opt-out from a weekly email newsletter and the sign-up process makes very clear (if it wasn't already) that the site is intended for health professionals. Furthermore, answers to consumer questions found in the monograph would not be directly accessible via a google search. It's unclear from the paper whether just the Drug Monographs or the entire set of Medscape Drug Reference results were used, but in either case (since many answers are buried in the monographs) it seems to me that the accessibility hurdle is way too high to make Medscape a realistic alternative source of information for consumers with drug-related questions.--ragesoss (talk) 18:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Laudanum

This article is not covered in the project, and I believe it should. It also has info on dosage; which should be eliminated. I do not have time to fix it right now. Can anybody do it?--Garrondo (talk) 10:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Done. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:17, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Diseases

Category:Diseases has been nominated for merging into Category:Diseases and disorders. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Cgingold (talk) 14:54, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Pharmalot blog

It appears to be run by a professional journalist, although he's a freelancer now. [1] Is it acceptable to use it as a source? It has a few hits in Wikipedia (use search). It was used for some outlandish claims, e.g. [2], but I've only used it to document the Skolek campaign [3], although MastCell removed even that reference, and now Ms. Skolek is back... Pcap ping 22:29, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:SPS for information on using blogs as sources. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:10, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
As WP:SPS notes, blogs are acceptable if they're run by people who are experts and have been published in reliable publications on the issue. If that guy is a professional journalist and he's been published in reliable publications on the pharmaceutical industry, then I wouldn't have a problem with him being used for limited information related to the pharmaceutical industry, like what you used it for. MastCell is more of a stickler than I am, but he doesn't have veto power. Take it to WP:RS/N and get some uninvolved opinions. II | (t - c) 08:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Wait - when did I lose my veto power? :) I'll be honest, I don't think this blog is appropriate sourcing for this tidbit. My reading of WP:SPS is that blogs may be acceptable in certain carefully circumscribed settings, but that "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so."

I'm also not clear that a freelance journalist who's had a few articles picked up can create a blog and generate "reliable" self-published content at will - particularly in an area where ample independent, reliable sources exist. It's not like we're hurting for well-sourced info on the topic such that we have to lower the bar. To take this line of reasoning a bit further, I could set up a blog, leverage my real-life credentials, and hold forth my musings on health, medicine, and my field of specialization - and it would be an encyclopedic, reliable source? No.

Is the Skolek campaign covered anywhere besides this one blog? Has there been any indepedent, reliably sourced comment on it? If not, then I have a really hard time seeing encyclopedic notability here. I'm fine with WP:RS/N - I'd just ask that you give me a heads-up if you take it there - and perhaps we should move this conversation to Talk:Purdue Pharma. MastCell Talk 19:18, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, his blog is being indexed by Google news: [4], and she does get some hits in older newspapers [5]. I don't particularly care for including this in the article. Pcap ping 19:45, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
My point is: I'd rather have someone write a short NPOV account of this, rather than have Ms. Skolek edit war over her unsourced version of the story. If she gets blocked from Wikipedia over this, you can expect more negative reporting from not so discerning reporters. Pcap ping 19:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
The notability question is a good point, and I thought about that after I turned off the computer. A Google News search for Skolek turns up only one source and it is -- surprise -- the Pharmalot blog.[6] Yet online news is limited. Pharmalot notes that she started a website, which has online copies of at least 3 regional newspaper articles which discuss her in-depth.[7][8][9] Some people don't think regional newspapers (The Express-Times, Courier News) are reliable either. These links also come with the problems discussed in WP:CONVENIENCE. As far as published information on the pharmaceutical industry, I don't know whether it's hard to find, but it seems as if newspaper industry is only going to get smaller. The NYTimes now sells junk bonds. Most business publications lean conservative. With the WSJ now owned by Murdoch, Portfolio.com downsizing, and related changes across the industry, I'm not sure I expect reliable coverage of the pharmaceutical to be all that forthcoming. As far as MastCell citing his blog all over Wikipedia, I wouldn't have a problem with it, although it would probably get replaced by better sources. But if he wanted to discuss the details on some esoteric complicated drug or treatment, he would have had to publish a paper (or a couple) on that issue. Reliability on complicated science seems different than reliability on covering industry news. II | (t - c) 19:52, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Try the Google News archives, there are more hits (see my post right above yours). Pcap ping 19:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Re: II, I couldn't disagree more about the existence of critical reporting on the pharmaceutical industry. It seems quite vibrant to me. The New York Times is currently doing a series on ties between academic medical experts and drug companies, tying in with Charles Grassley's investigations, and they've actually brought down a few very big names, mostly in academic psychiatry ([10], [11], [12], [13], [14]) - and that's all in the last few months. Hell, an editorial from this past Sunday was entitled "Expert or Shill?" And one of the Times' former medical reporters wrote a fascinating book called "Our Daily Meds", which grew from her reporting there - definitely worth a read. Even in this specific case, the Times heavily covered Purdue Pharma's problems. The media is on the case - they love this kind of thing, so I don't think we need to turn to low-profile blogs as the last defenders of journalistic integrity. MastCell Talk 22:14, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right. Would be interesting to see the Murdoch buy the NYTimes,[15] but even then I suppose there will be a fair bit of coverage. However, down the line things may not be so simple if the current trend continues. Incidentally, none of the 3 newspaper articles I noted are in Google News. P-cap might want to use one of the articles in Google News, but they all require registration, which is a bit of a hassle. II | (t - c) 00:18, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Medical director

We have an article, Medical director, that is entirely about medical directors that do EMS work -- simply because no one's found any non-EMS information to add to it. Would we like to expand this article? Does someone have sources handy? I realize that this is a low-priority type of article for this project, but if someone has an interest, then I'm sure further information would be welcome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:54, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Nursing homes and similar custodial institutions have medical directors, but their role is somewhat different. If content about them is added to Wikipedia then I would be in favor of a disambiguation page plus moving the current Medical director to Medical director (emergency medicine). --Una Smith (talk) 15:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Ref sources

At the ADHD page we have been discussing for the last few months if the Therapeutics Initiative[1] can be used as a reference source on medical pages. Editors comments to help resolve this dispute would be much appreciated. The exact source in question is http://ti.ubc.ca/en/letter69 Doc James (talk) 19:48, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

  • The Therapeutic Letter purportedly uses the standardized systematic review methodology, yet has not been published in any journal.
  • The Therapeutic Letter is published in a bimonthly newsletter.
  • No author's name appear on the letter.
  • The newsletter is published by The Therapeutics Initiative whose goal is to, "reduce bias as much as possible" by being "an independent organization, separate from government, pharmaceutical industry and other vested interest groups".
  • The Therapeutics Initiative is funded by the British Colombia Ministry of Health through a grant to the University of BC, in Canada. --scuro (talk) 21:04, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't look like an ideal source. However noble this publication sounds, it is not indexed for Medline and is oddly combative. I've had the same concerns about Prescrire International (which is indexed) which also routinely publishes negative reviews about medications in widespread use. Opposition to big pharma shenanigans is good and well, but that doesn't automatically make it a notable publication. In the same area, bodies like the UK National Instituate for Health and Clinical Excellence have made recommendations that are much more likely to be representative than a review by a maverick little journal that prides itself in saying mildly controversial things.

That all said, I have a phenomenal amount of respect for Bandolier, which is also not indexed and non-partisan, but doesn't seem to need all the anti-bias hyperbole to get its message accross. JFW | T@lk 21:51, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes agree. The recent NICE guidelines do however come to the same conclusions. This however is done over 370 pages rather then two pages as the new NICE ADHD guidelines cover the entire topic.--Doc James (talk) 17:18, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Physician assistant

If one or two more editors felt like putting Physician assistant on the watchlists for the next week or so, I'd appreciate it. The page is already semi-protected because the major problem (after one editor got blocked) was a pair of anon editors, so at the moment the traffic is the same editor deleting the "wrong" POV (i.e., what the source actually says, along with the reference to the source that s/he is supposedly getting the numbers from).

The edit war is about the number of physician assistants that work in "rural" counties in the United States. The POV-pushers are trying to prove that the profession has abandoned its purpose by working in, say, inner city clinics, instead of in rural areas. Among the problems with the POV is that the cited source doesn't use the word rural anywhere in it, and no possible combination of numbers in the source adds up to the "about 9%" that several editors have been repeatedly adding.

At this moment, the primary goal is to simply keep the reference from being deleted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done I'll keep an eye out. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 08:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Seems they're still at it. I've left a warning at their talk page, but it's likely he/she will remove it since they've done it with all past messages. I suggest a slightly more blunt warning should it continue and then we could discuss further action. But hey, let's hope the first is enough. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 17:24, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
The user continued his/her attempts to remove sources so I reported to WP:AIV. They've been blocked for 24hrs and we'll see what happens then. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 18:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Hereditary coproporphyria

the section 'Molecular Biology' in the above article contains contradictory statements. The first paragraph starts with 'The CPO gene is located in chromosome 3'. The second paragraph starts with 'The gene for human coproporphyrinogen oxidase (CPO) is found on chromosome 9 not chromosome 3.' I don't know the subject so am not qualified to edit.

I just watch 'House' too much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.3.169.80 (talk) 16:51, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Whoever added that should have known better. OMIM shows that this study (Grandchamp 1983) was later contradicted. The gene is definitely on 3q. Thanks for pointing this out.
Of course this strengthens my view that we should be careful in citing primary research studies, especially when they're dated. Everyone is invited into an ongoing slightly circular discussion on WT:MEDRS on the topic. JFW | T@lk 17:06, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Peritrabecular fibrosis

Cross-section of bone, showing the relationship of the outer (compact) layer and the inner (trabecular, spongy, cancellous) layer.

Hello. I'm currently working on the Osteitis fibrosa cystica article, and am attempting to expand a section on preliminary symptoms. Could anyone explain peritrabecular fibrosis? I can hardly form even the most rudimentary definition or explaination of it, and any help would be incredibly appreciated. Strombollii (talk) 17:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

A trabecula is "a small, often microscopic, tissue element in the form of a small beam, strut or rod, generally having a mechanical function, and usually but not necessarily composed of dense collagenous tissue" according to our article. Fibrosis is "development of excess fibrous connective tissue" according to our article. Therefore I'd imagine a decent definition of peritrabecular fibrosis as "Excessive development of trabeculae", but I could be wrong, after all I'm not trained in this stuff. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 17:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Seems to be a microscopy term... pathologist in the house? --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
There are two components of bone: cortical bone and trabecular bone. Cortical bone is solid, dense, compact, and forms the outer layer or "shell" around the long bones (femur, humerus, tibia, etc). The interior of the long bones is composed of trabecular bone (also called spongy or cancellous bone), which is more like scaffolding with struts and gaps - the holes in the "sponge" are generally filled with bone marrow (see illustration at right).

Peritrabecular fibrosis refers to a process that occurs in trabecular bone. There's a loss of calcified bone from the trabeculae, and it's replaced by fibrous connective tissue (like scar tissue, essentially). As you might imagine, the replacement of calcified trabecular bone with softer scar tissue causes the trabeculae to lose their supportive strength, and causes the bone to bend or fracture.

For my next slide... :) if you're looking for a short, relatively layperson-friendly explication of peritrabecular fibrosis, I'd say this: the calcified supportive structures inside the bone are replaced with fibrous (scar) tissue, weakening the bone. And no, I'm not a pathologist - I prefer the company of the living to that of the dead, though just barely on some days. :) MastCell Talk 22:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure most pathologists prefer the company of the living, MastCell. Very, very small bits of them. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, guys. That helped immensely. Strombollii (talk) 01:55, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you

A family member recently had a health issue, and I looked up the corresponding article on Wikipedia so I could at least have some minor amount of clue when I talked with the doctor. Some of the information in the article conflicted with the doctor’s information, and when I asked for a clarification from him, it turned out he had misspoken, and Wikipedia’s article was correct. It didn’t save a life or anything, but it sure as hell eased our minds in a stressful time.

I know our medical articles aren’t perfect or error-free, but I also know you all volunteer your time and work hard to provide useful information in a complicated area. Thank you.

Is there anything helpful I could do for WP:MED in return? I have really small windows of opportunity to edit every once in a great while, and I don’t know anything about anything, so I can’t research and write articles, but if there is a backlog of WP:MED-related grunt work somewhere that a reasonably intelligent but medically-ignorant editor can do, then I’d be happy to help out when I can. If not, then I'll just stick to my wikignoming and continue to quietly admire you all from afar. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:05, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Floquenbeam, glad to hear you found the article of good use to you. I hope all is well with your family. There are always little tasks which people need doing, and they're usually posted here, so if you're determined you can take your pick. Alternatively, you could pick something from here. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 21:10, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Cyclonenim: Surely you aren't implying I might consider taking the time to read the project page before I ask a question on the talk page?!? :) Thanks, I will poke around WP:MED#How you can help when I get the opportunity and see if there's something a civilian can do. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Eek, sorry :) I didn't intend to patronise you at all, just what came to mind. Thanks again for your interest. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 21:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Cyclonenim: Eek sorry right back at you, that wasn't what I was implying. Your answer was exactly what I was looking for, I just never thought to look there. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:39, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, you've already provided the single most useful and scarce thing on Wikipedia: positive feedback! Thanks for that, and for being interested in helping out on the WikiProject. Let me know if I can be of any assistance. MastCell Talk 21:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I can't believe I missed some sarcasm; I'm terribly good at dishing it out but never at recognising it. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 21:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Sarcasm? Where? --Una Smith (talk) 21:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I almost fell for that, too :( —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 22:22, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
:) LeeVJ (talk) 22:24, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia comes second

see http://www.nature.com/bdj/journal/v205/n10/full/sj.bdj.2008.994.html -- 172.158.55.160 (talk) 13:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Two in a week. Great. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 14:40, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, this is an opinionating letter, not a quantitative or semi-quantitative study. The author does not demonstrate where NICE provides any information on pica. JFW | T@lk 16:43, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

...and we shouldn't exactly be disagreeing with the intention behind that letter. Would you cite us in a scholarly article, or would you use the sources we cite? I use Wikipedia as a reference for my work every day, but (1) never as a sole reference and (2) my experience as an editor and admin has certainly made me capable of separating the wheat from the chaff. My main motivation for editing has become so that we may one day become as close to an unimpeachable source as our model permits. We're not there yet.
I, for one, am glad it was "Wikipedia comes second" and not "how dare you even think of Wikipedia, let alone use it as a reference, you... you... w****r quack!" (though I'm not sure Nature would have printed that :) It's a sign of how we're growing into mainstream reputability! Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Thankfully this exchange wasn't printed in Nature but in the Br Dent J, a slightly less austere publication. They are published by NPG, and I'm pretty sure they still wouldn't print the unprintable. JFW | T@lk 13:04, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Beware

Biophysical semeiotics and congenital acidosic enzymo-metabolic histangiopathy have arrived on Wikipedia.[16] JFW | T@lk 14:14, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Large expansion of Unverricht-Lundborg disease article

Perhaps you should take a look at the Unverricht-Lundborg disease page. A person editing as M.scrudato (talk · contribs) and 128.61.19.203 (talk · contribs) has dropped a large ammount of content in the article, untill then just a stub. Did a quick Google test: this does not seem to be a copy-paste job. I am in no way a medical expert, and have this article on my watchlist purely for personal reasons. But as far as I can tell it looks pretty good, and the sources seem genuine. Does M. Scrudato deserve a Medicine Barnstar for this? Cheers, Face 20:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks credible to me... you should go ahead with the barnstar, imho. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:51, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I think we should first try to get in touch with him/her, so I've left a welcoming message. - Face 22:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
How about a "Did you know?" item on the Main Page? --Una Smith (talk) 05:19, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Good idea! I guess that would be something like this:
...that Unverricht-Lundborg disease is the most common form of an uncommon group of genetic epilepsy disorders called progressive myoclonic epilepsy?
I don't know how this DYK system works. Could someone help? Cheers, Face 10:32, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok, decided to try it myself. I hope I didn't screw up. - Face 10:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Done! - Face 14:06, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Why?!!

Why the examination of the superior and inferior oblique muscle ( two of the extaocular muscles) differs from their action ? i.e. we examine the inferior oblique muscle by asking the patient to look up and in (medially)while the action of this muscle is to rotate the eye ball so that the cornea looks up and out (laterally). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ammsenosy (talk • contribs) 08:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Removal of Dosage information

A fellow editor pointed out that the Lofepramine article contained a section outlining dosage without either putting it in context or citing a source. Just asking for conformation: is this edit the right thing to do? Should this removal be done on any other similar articles I find? Cheers. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 13:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd ask over at WT:PHARM, but as far as I know, we discourage dosing information. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:36, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Spamming for TS

This is Tourette syndrome spam for my friends. Sunday night's Hallmark Hall of Fame movie is the true story of Brad Cohen, author of Front of the Class: How Tourette Syndrome Made Me the Teacher I Never Had. I've met Brad at conferences, and he's among the three most dramatic and severe ticquers I've ever met; his life story is inspirational, and he has said in the media that the movie portrayal is authentic. Vandal watching for the usual vulgarities at tic, coprolalia, Tourette syndrome and Brad Cohen through tomorrow night would be most appreciated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't have full journal access. Can anyone verify that the full text of these articles goes beyond what is stated in the abstract, and verifies that the individuals had/have coprolalia in addition to other tics? See Talk:Coprolalia#Sign language text. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:43, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I've answered this at the talkpage of coprolalia. The answer, for those interested, is yes. Unsurprisingly, to me.--Slp1 (talk) 22:45, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks so much, Slp1; I've added the text back in to the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Illustrations of symptoms

Mikael Häggström has been creating these charts of symptoms. There's a whole bunch of them, there quite professional, and well composed, imho. Some of them are illustrative but others, like this one perhaps, seems to add nothing to the text in the article... I would be tempted to remove them if they add little extra value, but I'd like the opinion of others. There's many of them so individual discussions on different talk pages might not be useful. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I'm alone on this but I feel that lol — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyclonenim (talk • contribs) 22:20, 1 December 2008
I have no idea what happened there, it looks like it's been somehow refactored without being in the history... I was going to say that maybe I'm alone on this but I feel that images like this help to summarise what is put in the article in a big block of text. I see no harm in keeping them. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 21:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
I think images always add more to an article. Even if they tell the same as the text in the article, they provide a very quick and easy review of what has just been read. Furthermore, the project generally lacks in images, since only a small fraction of the images on the Internet have a compatible license. Mikael Häggström (talk) 20:23, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
To me, this particular image suggests all these signs and symptoms can occur together in one patient. I think that is very unlikely. --Una Smith (talk) 21:02, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps "possible sites and symptoms of CANCER METASTASIS" would be better then? Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:32, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I think there is little merit in this kind of images. The cancer metastasis image, for instance, simply lists all symptoms per organ system, which the article is already doing to a degree. There are some significant omissions (e.g. spinal cord compression), which cannot be easily corrected because the image is a PNG. The image doesn't come with an image map, so a user can't click on a symptom and reach the article in question without having to go through the text... Which is what we wanted to prevent by adding an image!

I still think it's a good thing that there are images, even if their information is provided in the article text as well. Regarding format, it is actually made from an svg file, but the body background, which is imported as a png, won't come with if I upload it as svg. Perhaps anybody knows how to solve this. Else, if anybody tells me any issue I can make the edit and upload it anew. Image map may be added as well. Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:32, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I share Cyclonenim's view that some articles are very high on dry text and too low on images. There must be other ways of making images that illustrate the related content. JFW | T@lk 21:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

For the text in this case, that is, symptoms of diseases, it hard to see any better solution. And even with this image included, more images are still needed all in all.Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:32, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I think illustration are a good idea. They add some color to the pages. Frank Netter is famous for similar medical pictures. http://www.netterimages.com/ I must say I have spent may hours looking at medical illustrations and if someone want to generate something similar to them for wikipedia I think they deserve a barn star. Netters imaging list many symptoms of a condition together. No one is saying they always occur together and I do not think that need to be stated. I hope Mikael keeps making them. Illustrations that are similar to the condition being described would however be better but at this is a start.--Doc James (talk) 03:03, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Although these may not be of the same quality as Netter's, at least they are completely public domain and free for anybody to view, poor as well as wealthy. And as long as more of them seem to be needed I'll continue making them, as much as my time avails. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:40, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Although it's probably harmless, I have a real problem with Mikael Häggström saying on his user page he "posed as a model for non-profit projects, most notably Wikipedia, where he appears in articles, that, taken together, are viewed by more than one million people each month." --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:48, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Very well, what is important is that they are useful (which they wouldn't be in a galaxy far far away were nobody saw them). The images serve their purpose no matter if I state it on my presentation or not, so I may just as well remove that part. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:05, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

press review

i started a kind of press review on medical wikipedia-articles in de: de:Wikipedia:Redaktion Medizin/Presse, is there anything similar specific in en: (except Wikipedia:Wikipedia in academic studies/Wikipedia:Press_coverage)? -- Cherubino (talk) 11:51, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

No, we don't have a list of specific sources, but we provide general advice about selecting sources at WP:MEDRS. WP:DERM has started a list of specific recommended sources... but I'm not actually convinced that it's a good idea. Every source needs to be evaluated according the specific context of how it is being used. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Cherubino is asking if we have collected English-language press about Wikipedia's medical articles. Press such as discussed in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Drug Information in Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Wikipedia comes second. --Una Smith (talk) 21:25, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I searched PubMed for "Wikipedia" and found not much else, except the following. --Una Smith (talk) 21:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

  • PMID 18701172, a sad case report of Dengue fever where the abstract in effect wikilinks Wikipedia, I expect in the hope that more timely diagnosis might save lives.
  • PMID 18692758, a small experiment re efficiency and accuracy of searching for medical information on the web.
  • PMID 18686418, editorial with title When searching for the evidence, stop using Wikipedia!
  • PMID 18366721, authors' synonym set extraction outperforms both MeSH and Wikipedia; this article might have have a useful comparison of MeSH vs Wikipedia.
  • PMID 17521060, editorial with title Proceed with caution: using Wikipedia as a reference.
  • PMID 16160349, advocates adoption of Wikipedia by medical informatics community.

thanks, found also wikibooks:Radiation Oncology/Education/Wiki -- Cherubino (talk) 10:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia will replace peer reviewed publishing?

According to the founder of Medscape at least: see here. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:16, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

That is an impressive endorsement.--Doc James (talk) 20:27, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Indeed impressive, but I wonder how he envisages conflict resolution and dealing with scientific fraud. JFW | T@lk 21:15, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
Not quite Wikipedia, but our system of openness and critical appraisal, regardless of critics' or authors' credentials. The comment about the lack of thorough peer-review and "cliques" in "established" journals had a sad ring of truth about it, (well for me at least). I have seen many (poor) papers that have been published based on the authors(') reputation(s) rather than scientific content. Graham Colm Talk 22:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Hearing Tests

I have been asked to provide a citation for a change i made to the article on hearing tests where i have stated that medical doctors and some nurses can perform hearing tests and it is not a test strictly to be performed by audiologists.

I see no reason to provide a citation here as 1) this is my own work and 2) it is pretty self-explanatory that a doctor or trained nurse can conduct hearing tests.

(152.78.249.48 (talk) 17:29, 8 December 2008 (UTC)dt152.78.249.48 (talk) 17:29, 8 December 2008 (UTC))

If it is your own work, it fails under our policy called no original research. I would prefer a reference for such a statement as it is an assertion of fact. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 18:03, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd be interested in knowing which article are you talking about. For sure depending on the type of hearing test performed, doctors, nurses, assistants etc can and other trained personnel (even SLPs!!) can and do perform them. Having said that, it is important to provide a citation when requested per WP:V If you let me know the article I will try to help you.--Slp1 (talk) 23:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I have wikified and copyedited the article some. The offending sentence is removed, as it can't possibly represent a worldwide view. I know nothing of the subject matter and just improved language and links. Actually there are probably way too many articles on the subject (some are listed at Audiologist), and clean-up/merging would be a good idea. - Hordaland (talk) 18:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Valid edit?

This diff by an IP represents either a valid correction or vandalism. Will someone who knows their hippocampuses from their hypothalamuses please take a look. Thanks, - Hordaland (talk) 18:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Reverted.--Garrondo (talk) 18:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

By golly, you're quick. - Hordaland (talk) 18:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Tinea/Pityriasis versicolor and mycologic taxonomy

I'd really appreciate input from anyone with some experience in this area. Please see my comments in its discussion page. Cheers, Mattopaedia (talk) 00:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I replied there with some quotes from secondary sources. kilbad (talk) 16:49, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
The same.--Doc James (talk) 17:07, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Osteitis Fibrosa

I'm currently working on the Osteitis fibrosa cystica article as part of a project for an AP Biology class. I was wondering if anyone with a medical background, mild interest, or deeply rooted cynicism could run through the article briefly and confirm that I do, in fact, have my facts straight. Any help in explaining, wording, copyediting, or even just open criticism would be immensely appreciated also.

Thanks, guys. Strombollii (talk) 16:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Voodoo polls as sources in medicine

Per this, just created: Thomas the tank engine and autism, sourced entirely to blogs and a support group survey (that is, a voodoo poll). The same biased poll is used to source Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends#Popularity with autistic audience.

Pseudoscience ArbCom: Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources require that information included in an article have been published in a reliable source which is identified and potentially available to the reader. What constitutes a reliable source varies with the topic of the article, but in the case of a scientific theory, there is a clear expectation that the sources for the theory itself are reputable textbooks or peer-reviewed journals. Scientific theories promulgated outside these media are not properly verifiable as scientific theories and should not be represented as such. Medicine is an applied science, and clearly medical articles should rely on sources appropriate for a scientific article. A voodoo poll is not that. Raul654 17:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC) [17]

Should Thomas the tank engine and autism be sent to AFD, prodded, or redirected to Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends#Popularity with autistic audience, which is not sourced according to WP:MEDRS standards? I'm dismal at AfD in case someone else wants to do the honors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:04, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I've done some searching and agree that there probably isn't enough reliably-sourced material to contribute to an article on this subject. Both Google Books and Google Scholar show that Thomas is frequently mentioned in the literature on Autism. There probably is a special relationship, though this is becoming self-fulfilling through the promotion of Thomas by the NAS. As an example, just prior to the first study in 2001, Charlotte Moore wrote in the Guardian, "In young autists an absorption in the works of the late, great Rev W Awdry is almost universal. George, my older autistic son,...". That, together with some of the material on the NAS website, would constitute reliable sources that there is anecdotal evidence of a relationship. In addition, the NAS material is reliable on the fact that they conducted two surveys and claim to have discovered certain things. It is also a reliable source on their opinions about the putative link. We know nothing much about the first study other than its size; it might have been somewhat better conducted. The second study, however, is really, really bad. I found the link to it on Archive.org (but sadly not the study questions). In April/May/June 2007, their homepage said
Take part in our Thomas & Friends online survey Calling all parents! Does your child have autism? Does he/she love Thomas & Friends? If the answer to these questions is 'yes!', please take part in The National Autistic Society's new Thomas & Friends survey!
At least they reported the results accurately on their August homepage
Parents give Thomas & Friends the thumbs up for children with autism A new survey commissioned by The National Autistic Society reveals that 99% of parents who took part ranked the Thomas & Friends character top of the toys, followed by Bob the Builder.
Sadly, the "who took part" bit is the problem. Colin°Talk 13:25, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
I recommend merging anything that can be sourced to reliable material into Thomas and Friends. I'm removing the "Lead Poisoning Controversy" section right now as it is a shocking example of WP:SYNTH, using unreliable sources to boot. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas the tank engine and autism. Maralia (talk) 18:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Say, what? Thomas the Tank Engine causes autism? Axl ¤ [Talk] 22:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, at least we know who can cure it, right? Maralia (talk) 23:00, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Please help with the ASCB workshop

Hi everybody, I thought I'd ask your Wikiproject for some help. The American Society for Cell Biology and the MBC Wikiproject are hosting a workshop this Tuesday, the 16th, to give scientists at the ASCB annual meeting a crash course in editing Wikipedia (see User:Proteins for more details). The workshop will focus on creating biochemistry and cell biology articles with the aim of quickly improving them to GA or eventually FA quality. Proteins and I are running the workshop, but we could benefit from your help! We'd like to find friendly and professional Wikipedians who will greet the newbie scientists and help them with their articles.

The workshop will run from 12:30-2:30pm local San Francisco time. We will be speaking until ~1pm, and the participants won't start their user pages until 12:45pm at the earliest. We'll ask them to add the template {{ASCB workshop}} to their user page, which will add them to the Category:ASCB 2008 Wikipedia workshop participants category. Then you'll be able to see who's participating and welcome them. Other help with categorization, finding/formatting images and references, etc. would be great as well.

Any help bringing these expert editors into the community would be much appreciated! Tim Vickers (talk) 14:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

eponymous diseases proposal

Some eponymous disease articles have the possessive tense (Alzheimer's disease other's don't e.g. Down syndrome, as the eponymous disease article states there are varying opinions and use of it, but a ( admittly old ) guuideline suggested it was best to drop the possessive term, as it was neither owned or caused by the discover. This sounds better to me as in 'Down sydrome' vs 'Down's syndrome' i.e. more neutral and professional. I know it would be a task and a half but I can forsee this naming convention being adopted more generally so why not start now and take a position on it? What does anyone think about adopting the principle into the MOS? LeeVJ (talk) 22:50, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I think this is something that we've discussed over and over again, and the conclusion is always the same: there is currently no standard -- in the real world, in the reliable sources, or here. So we go with whatever choice was originally made by the first author (very similar to the decision about whether an article is written in American or British English). If we wanted to propose a standard, I'd suggest that "Don't change whatever's already there" be the standard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Also, ICD-10 uses the possessive, and per MEDMOS, we usually defer to it. --Arcadian (talk) 23:46, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I was taught in medical school that some older disease names had a standard where the 's was removed because it was back in the day when each written letter was a fee (I don't know if it was a fee to get printed, or what). To reduce the charge, they dropped the 's. It was just orally taught though, so who knows. 207.151.231.51 (talk) 05:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Is there a bot

I have been working on List of skin-related conditions and want to alphabetize each section of diseases. Restated, under each header, I want the diseases to be alphabetized. Is there a bot, or some other automated way to do this? I would prefer not to do it manually. kilbad (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I do this task in a text editor. It is trivial if links are not pipes. I sorted the first few sections, then stopped. This list basically repeats the Wikipedia category structure; why not use that? --Una Smith (talk) 00:45, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The list mirrors the category structure, which is intentional (see WP:DERM); however, the list of diseases provides synonyms for diseases that will not be found in the category listings. Additionally, a major reason for the list is to provide editors with a guide for how to categorize diseases initially. Therefore, I think it is still important to alphabetize each section for better referencing (though people can use Control-F as another option). kilbad (talk) 00:57, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
If anyone else is available, I would love some help (1) alphabetizing the diseases under each header, and (2) alphabetizing the synonym names for diseases within each parenthetical. Thanks again for all your help! kilbad (talk) 01:45, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I suggest you post your question at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). That forum specializes in help with technical questions. There are some very skilled programmers watching that page and questions usually get quick replies. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:12, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the list entries should be in alphabetic order under each heading, but is the list all that useful if it copies the category structure? Synonyms should be made into redirects and included in the relevant article leads, and such redirects can be included in categories; there, they appear in italics. Then, instead of a huge list how about a navbox to the categories? --Una Smith (talk) 04:01, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I was categorizing redirects for a while, but then (I cannot remember who, I think it was an administrator) told me redirects should not be categorized. Is this correct? Regardless, I think it is important to have a list as a starting point for categorization, because most people are not going to know how to categorize many of the derm diseases. Additionally, the list provides an outline for which articles are still missing in wikipedia. Maybe someday we can get rid the of big list, but right now I think it does serve a function. kilbad (talk) 04:09, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

People, people. You can save a lot of time by placing a request at WP:BOTR. There's bound to be a bot that can do this. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 10:50, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Procedural sedation

I am unable to find another page on Procedural sedation so I started one. Has this been missed or I am just blind an unable to find a perfectly good page somewhere else?

--Doc James (talk) 22:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead. I think there are still quite a few surgical articles missing as well. For instance, a number of peripheral vascular procedures are missing. JFW | T@lk 01:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Categorization

If a disease is known by two names, should the redirect be categorized? kilbad (talk) 02:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categorizing redirects#When to categorize a redirect offers guidance relevant to this question. --Una Smith (talk) 06:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Are doctoral dissertations reliable?

I found this doctoral thesis on the Lund University website:

I was wandering whether I could use it in the Paleolithic diet article. Cheers, Thermoproteus (talk) 13:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

  • In this case I say yes. The Scandinavian system is very open. More than two or three copies are produced, they are given ISBN numbers, copies are circulated to experts in the field and they are publicly defended. I am lucky enough to have a few here on my bookshelf. Graham Colm Talk 13:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Great! Cheers, Thermoproteus (talk) 14:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

eMedicine links

The url structure of the eMedicine website has changed recently. Old links still work but are redirected to the new address. However this makes it impossible to use the link format currently used in the disease infobox used on almost all disease articles. What can we do about that? Change the format and have a bot convert all links? --WS (talk) 22:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Epilepsy edits

Could someone here please review the recent edits on Epilepsy. I've undone once and prefer not to revert more than once (and I see nothing to keep). An IP has been adding good-faith but inaccurate edits to the lead concerning how many seizures you need before you are diagnosed with Epilepsy; a clause about the ILAE classification that is redundant and fails WP:DATED; and a badly wikiformatted section below Pathophysiology that is just unsourced OR. You don't need to be a neurologist to help. Colin°Talk 22:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to those editors who helped here. Colin°Talk 22:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Diagnosis by counting the number of seizures? Is that for real? It sounds incredibly primitive to me. Guido den Broeder (talk, visit) 22:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
No, not really. Basically, one seizure is just a seizure. More than one is epilepsy (which by definition consists of recurrent seizures). Pretty straightforward. MastCell Talk 23:06, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
If there is only one seizure then there is nothing to be done about it afterward, other than watchful waiting: there is little or no evidence to base a diagnosis on, and no treatment is needed. If seizures are recurrent, then diagnosis and treatment can address the expected future seizures. --Una Smith (talk) 04:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Refractive

Refractive redirects to Refraction, which has a couple of disambiguation hatnotes at the top, not including the medical sense. Does anyone here care to fully disambiguate either of these terms? --Una Smith (talk) 18:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

What medical sense? Optometry is mentioned in the refraction article. Colin°Talk 19:29, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Do you mean refractory? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 19:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
That would make more sense. As in not responding to treatment. :-) Graham Colm Talk 20:00, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes. There is Refractory (disambiguation) but no article on refractory as in not responding to treatment. Refractory anemia is pending merge into Anemia, and it would help to be able to wikilink "refractory" in the merged article. --Una Smith (talk) 21:29, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Look up refractory in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
I'm not sure there's an article-worth of information to say about "refractory". I suppose we do have Chronic (medicine) and Acute (medicine). Maybe a Wiktionary link would suffice. Colin°Talk 21:34, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Maybe not, but does Wiktionary suffice? The word is medical jargon. --Una Smith (talk) 21:43, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Overdose

Thinking of creating some pages on overdoses. Wondering what name we should use. For example should we call it opioid toxicity, opioid overdose, or opioid poisoning? Have gone with overdose for a couple but should there be consistency?--Doc James (talk) 22:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer poisoning, maybe even toxicity. Overdose is limited to things where there is an accepted dose. You wouldn't really talk of a botulinum toxin overdose, for example. Just my two cents. SDY (talk) 23:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Probably a good idea to check the parent articles (if you haven't already), because many of our drug articles already have sections on overdose/toxicity. They could be split out into subarticles, particularly when there's a lot to cover (e.g. acetaminophen overdose, opioid overdose), but no need to reinvent the wheel. MastCell Talk 00:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
So maybe use a bit of each then. There was no page or section on opioid overdose as far as I am aware before the very poor quality stub today.--Doc James (talk) 03:25, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Nature: "Publish in Wikipedia or perish"

If you haven't seen this already, then check it out. It is pretty interesting. Remember (talk) 18:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Publish in Wikipedia or perish: Journal to require authors to post in the free online encyclopaedia

Wikipedia, meet RNA. Anyone submitting to a section of the journal RNA Biology will, in the future, be required to also submit a Wikipedia page that summarizes the work. The journal will then peer review the page before publishing it in Wikipedia.

From Nature

Now also Wikinews. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:08, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
That's pretty cool. MastCell Talk 18:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Won't many of these articles be "primary" research articles, thus discouraged under WP:MEDRS? II | (t - c) 18:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree. More worrying, it's complete jargon. I suggest everyone puts this on his/her watchlist due to high visibility and PR issues related to potential vandalism. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:05, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm guessing you're talking about the SmY RNA article, for those who don't have access to Nature. II | (t - c) 19:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I dunno; I think it's a useful start. It's a referenced, informative, unobjectionable article, containing several illustrations which have been released into the public domain. I agree it's jargony and can stand to be improved. But I guess the question is whether a jargony but sourced stub/starter article written by knowledgeable people is more useful to the encyclopedia than a redlink.

On a more general level, I'd like to see us encourage more scientists, researchers, and knowledgeable folk to edit Wikipedia. Out of every 10 researchers who post something because they have to, maybe 1 will stick around, learn the ropes, and become the next TimVickers. Maybe I'm alone in this feeling, but I think this has tremendous potential to get experts involved in a way that benefits the project and increases the amount of freely available and useful information. It's already gotten Wikipedia some positive press in Nature; what's the worst-case scenario here? MastCell Talk 19:19, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Interesting prospect, I like it. This currently only applies to the journal RNA Biology, comparatively more articles will be created in biology WikiProjects rather than WP:MED. As stated in the article, I'm sure almost everything will be arranged by WP:RNA and must follow their guidelines, not ours. Unless of course the article is more medicine than biology, where it might fall under our 'rules'. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 19:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Of course this is fantastic news, not only because of the attention from Nature-readers but also because this could be a very powerful principle. I just wished the author guidelines were not all about using references and headers, and included something about writing for a general audience and other style issues. I agree with MastCell that it's better than a redlink. What would be ideal is that "JAMA Patient summaries" were changed into "JAMA-Wikipedia MCOTW"! Seriously, we need the medical community to become as sympathetic towards us as the biomedical community. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
For awhile now, I think a number of us have been kicking around ideas about how to get medical professionals more involved here. I view participation here as a pretty direct extension of a physician's job description, which is to educate people and help them make good decisions about their health. Many of us who are active here have probably had the experience of hearing a patient recite medical information gleaned from Wikipedia; for me, this was a key factor leading me to get involved on Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, the recruiting task is a bit harder in medical as opposed to basic-science fields. No one is going to fight to give more prominence to a "neglected" viewpoint on SmY RNA; most of these topics are clear-cut matters of presenting uncontroversial information in a clear and accurate manner. On the other hand, try writing about Lyme disease, and the ILADS folks will come after you. Write about HIV/AIDS, and you'll find yourself spending most of your time playing whackamole with AIDS denialists on Wikipedia. Write about practically any disease (Crohn's, MS, cancer, etc) and you'll find yourself arguing over an "Alternative Treatments" section where someone wants to use a single preclinical study in 3 Nod/SCID mice to argue that lotus blossoms are a safe, natural, non-patentable cure. Most medical professionals will run for the hills and back to the world of the sane once they discover the leeway and lenience that committed advocates of nonsense are provided here.

Still, I'm in a very cynical phase at the moment. To be more positive, I did have a very good experience when I started here. More experienced editors, like Jfdwolff and Samir, helped guide me, and I was able to develop featured articles on acute myeloid leukemia and cholangiocarcinoma with a lot of help from the project and others. I'm open to participating in any endeavor that encourages medical professionals to contribute their expertise here, and I know we all try to be as welcoming as possible, which really is important. MastCell Talk 22:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure, there are areas where WP is a battle, but there are loads of WP:MED pages that are peaceful but in a poor state (unsourced, uncomprehensive, over-jargony or over-lay). And we're not just talking obscure treatments or drugs. We need experts with a desire to write general-reader-friendly prose that conforms to WP policies. Not every expert has the ability or desire to do this. I'm not convinced that demanding a WP page for each journal paper is the correct approach but maybe there are loads of redlinks over at the RNA project. Colin°Talk 22:51, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right. Like I said, I'm overly cynical at the moment. Must be the holidays. :) MastCell Talk 23:27, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe in evidence and academia. I show Wikipedia to my staff. I encourage my students to edit. When I first found this I was amazed at how many people view this stuff. See http://stats.grok.se/en/200806/obesity There are still very view editors. Many topics havn't seen edits for months and are rittled with errors. More editors with a medical background would definately be a help. The more scientific press we get the better it will be for all.--Doc James (talk) 02:01, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

More editors would help. I think emphasis on editors' qualifications does more harm than good. --Una Smith (talk) 18:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
There's something to be said for writers that know what they're talking about. The process of editing, however, is less expertise-dependent and more of an exercise in patience and perseverance. Having an "expert" write the article in the first place and then sending the hounds of war editing in to clean up is a decent "process flow." Quality from the ground up would be better, but it's hard to demand that with volunteers. My concern with the originally posted article is that it seemingly demands that editors with a conflict of interest write the article. SDY (talk) 19:22, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
We are supposed to look stuff up, not write "off the top of our heads", which is hard not to do when you write from prior knowledge. Also, writing from experience tends to introduce original research. COI is a concern too, and so is being too close to the topic to communicate to a general readership. This specific plan looks like a journal aiming to use Wikipedia as a marketing mechanism. Article summaries aren't exactly encyclopedic material, and evidently they will be written offline and simply cut & pasted here once approved. That's not exactly writing for or on Wikipedia. And what happens when someone starts rewriting them? Will the authors and journal editors be able to resist ownership and checkpointing? I will be interested to see what comes of this plan. --Una Smith (talk) 21:40, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. People who write "off the top of their heads" are not experts. Experts are people who are informed by familiarity with the evidence base and published research and literature in a field, and as such have the potential to be very useful contributors. I don't recall ever seeing an expert have trouble on Wikipedia because they insisted on writing "off the top of their heads" without reference to the published literature, though I'd be interested in examples.

Most of the other concerns don't seem too major to me. Let's say they can't communicate with a general readership, or use excess jargon. First of all, people who look up SmY RNA are likely to have some basic familiarity with molecular biology - it's not a general health condition or disease, or even our parent article on RNA, but a subarticle on a specialized topic in molecular biology. Even leaving that aside, the point is that people can edit Wikipedia. They can improve the article if it's too filled with jargon or inaccessible. Once the article is uploaded here, it's released under GFDL for anyone to edit and improve. We've dealt with ownership before and we'll have to do so again, but that's not a reason to discourage people with expertise from contributing across the board. MastCell Talk 22:39, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I think we don't mean the same thing by "off the top of their heads". I mean it in the same way as off the cuff, not in the sense of, erm, complete nonsense. Someone who thinks they know a subject well (regardless of whether that is true) may be more likely to write from what they remember, rather than from a source laid beside the keyboard. I am not concerned about jargon; I am concerned about errors of fact. I reject the notion that editors "lacking expertise" are responsible for more than their fair share of errors. Everyone forgets important details (those details that are not important to them) and makes other errors. As an example, I got pretty annoyed with some other editors here over Herpes zoster, when I went to the trouble of reading an entire monograph on the cell biology of the virus in its host. Sure, we cope with ownership, but should we applaud schemes that encourage it? I want to avoid discouraging anyone from editing Wikipedia. How is that goal served by preferring editors with (ahem) extremely narrow expertise, or by creating unrealistic expectations in those editors who do give it a try? I think recruitment should focus on people likely to have both interest and ability relevant to writing an encyclopedia; very few subject experts that I know have either the interest or the ability. --Una Smith (talk) 04:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid I'm a bit lost, since I don't understand how this proposal will "discourage" anyone from editing Wikipedia; quite the reverse. I don't see how this proposal gives "preference" to anyone; it just ensures that people with some real-world knowledge will be exposed to Wikipedia and give it a try. I'm really having trouble understanding how this is bad thing. MastCell Talk 22:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Many scientists are concerned with communicating their stuff to non-scientists and to people in other fields. Recruitment to their fields is just one reason. The people on ScienceBlogs, like this guy may be in the forefront, but also others go to seminars on this. Open access is actively debated. I hope other journals follow. Exposed to Wikipedia from the inside, and knowing that its readership is enormous, some few will follow up (be bitten by the bug; it is addicting) and continue editing. These will be an asset to Wikipedia. --Hordaland (talk) 07:25, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Madura Foot

I tried to search for madura foot on wikipedia, but it get redirected to Mycetoma. I guess Madura foot is not actually Mycetoma and it is Mycetoma pedia. if it is really so, then there should be a seperate article about Madura foot on wikipedia. in that case, how to cancel the redirect. 02:46, 19 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shivashree (talk • contribs)

I'd hazard a guess that it is mycetoma caused by either of the Madurella genus fungi listed in causes, I see you have updated the article to include the madura foot synonym. LeeVJ (talk) 23:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Hypouricemia

I have been expanding Hypouricemia and I have a question (and request for sources) about its threshold value. In some cases, threshold values are set at a more or less arbitrary multiple of median on a distribution curve. In other cases, threshold values reflect a physiological threshold. I have found suggestions in the literature that gout cannot occur if serum uric acid is below a certain value; that value is in the range of quoted threshold values for hypouricemia. Does the threshold in fact reflect a physiological vanishing point for gout? Thanks. --Una Smith (talk) 19:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Health in Mississippi

Hello, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year! A couple questions for the miracle workers here:

  1. Would it be acceptable to tag Mississippi with the medicine project tag? We are trying to improve a section on health that deals with the number one obesity problem in the United States. For some background on this topic, see Obesity_in_the_United_States.
  2. Would someone please review the discussion over at Talk:Mississippi#Health and help with some critical suggestions for improvement, or better yet, help us improve this section?

Thanks! Viriditas (talk) 02:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

WPMED generally does not consider articles on nations, states, cities, etc. to be within its "diseases and their treatment" scope. However, it's possible that someone here would be willing to help out with the one section. I understand that the current argument is partly about whether people are likely to exercise outdoors when it's beastly hot and unbelievably humid? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:28, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. Obviously, most people aren't going to exercise outside when it's 115°F, nor will they exercise when it's -19°F. I think that's a non-issue. The original article attributed the Mississippi obesity epidemic, in part, to the hot climate in Mississippi. Two editors are arguing that this is a major reason for the sedentary lifestyle in the state. When this was challenged, an editor found a BBC news article where a reporter talked to a few locals who said it was too hot to exercise. This anecdote was included in between two surveys, making it seem like it was a result of published research. But, the sedentary lifestyle of obese individuals in Mississippi doesn't appear to be much different than that of other obese Americans in other climates who face similar pressures. In other words, the lifestyle doesn't require an appeal to the climate. The epidemic in Mississippi appears directly linked to poverty, education, poor nutrition, overeating, and the inability of the state to address the epidemic with the appropriate funds.[18] The claim that it is too hot to exercise outside doesn't seem to have anything to do with the problem, and is poorly sourced. Studies of the effects of climate on obesity and metabolism, particularly on African American women, also show that climate isn't the issue.[19] Interestingly, people in cold climates are more at risk for obesity, especially children born in cold climates.[20] And, the sedentary lifestyle spent indoors in a cold climate while it is snowing or raining could be just as risky as spending time indoors in an air-conditioned house during a heat wave. I have yet to see a source that meets WP:MEDRS and mentions the warm climate as a risk factor for lack of exercise. Is the hot climate in Mississippi a risk factor for mortality? Probably, and this has been getting a lot of press in the last few days as a "death map" was released on the 17th (Spatial patterns of natural hazards mortality in the United States).[21] Heat-related deaths are a concern with the elderly, but I think we should keep this separate from any discussion about obesity. Viriditas (talk) 13:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
I would agree the heat/cold connection seems weak. There are many passes both warmer and colder that have lower rates of obesity. Never seen this mentioned in my reading.--Doc James (talk) 13:28, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
I want to clarify something. Most of what I wrote above was a response to this statement that originally appeared in the article:

The hot climate and poor nutrition appear to contribute to problems with weight.For three years in a row, more than 30 percent of Mississippi's residents have been classified as obese.

I removed the first sentence. After I removed it, two editors were still convinced of the relationship between obesity and climate, and one editor said that they were going to search for a RS. This is what they found:

For three years in a row, more than 30 percent of Mississippi's residents have been classified as obese. According to the BBC, "hot, humid conditions for most of the year can make outdoor exercise unpleasant."[22]

I removed the second sentence because it was anecdotal, and the way the BBC reporter included it in his report was very sneaky. First, it was a personal anecdote, and he inserted it between a survey and a study to make it seem authoritative. Here is the original text:

The Trust for America's Health survey found that adults in Mississippi are the least physically active of any state.¶ The climate in Mississippi doesn't help according to the locals: hot, humid conditions for most of the year can make outdoor exercise unpleasant.¶ I visited there in December when the weather was mild, but that still wasn't enough to attract joggers onto the streets.¶ Poverty is a key factor.¶ Many obesity studies have shown that, in developed countries, the less educated you are, the more likely you are to become obese.

The Trust for America's Health survey doesn't say anything about climate. From what I can tell, there is no survey or study that connects obesity with the above description of Mississippi climate. However, it is reasonable to assume that the reporter's personal observation is true; parents and children alike probably do stay indoors more often during the hot summer, but is this any different than those who stay indoors during long winters in states like Minnesota, a state that ranks 30th on the list, with 24.8 percent of their adult population classified as obese?[23] Mississippi stands at 31.7%.[24] But the difference in health statistics is what stands out, not climate. Only 9% of people in Minnesota are uninsured,[25], while the number rises to 20% in Mississippi.[26] More telling, Minnesota has the lowest poverty rate (7.5%) while Mississippi has the highest (18.3%). You can toggle between the two links MS[27] to compare Trust for America's Health stats. Do we really need to mention climate? It doesn't seem relevant to obesity. And the reporter didn't ask physicians, he simply asked "locals". Should we be citing random strangers as health experts in a Wikipedia article? Viriditas (talk) 14:33, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
Yes I agree. It is poor quality info and should be removed. One needs much better research than what is presented to conclude that obesity is caused by the weather. See the page on obesity for causes that are supported by research.--Doc James (talk) 17:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Physical dependence

Just letting you know that I'm disputing the factual accuracy of that article included in your WikiProject at Talk:Physical dependence#Disputing the inclusion of whole classes in the list. Xasodfuih (talk) 01:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I replied to both discussions on the talk page. That is an important article because so many pages all over wikipedia link to it.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:22, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Opening article sentence

Are there guidelines for how an opening sentence should be formated, particularly with disease articles when the disease is known by multiple names, and/or with acronyms? I have been using a simple parenthetical, like with Acne aestivalis, but I have seen other people state disease synonyms later on in the intro paragraph, and/or bold everything, like with Cutis marmorata telangiectatica congenita. kilbad (talk) 14:49, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's specifically mentioned in any guideline (perhaps check WP:LEAD, very long though) but I believe our convention here is to mention synonyms straight after the article name. So in Acne aestivalis it'd be:
"Acne aestivalis (also know as Mallorca acne) is a monomorphous eruption..."
or "Acne aestivalis (or Mallorca acne) is a monomorphous eruption..."
and so on. We tend to make bold anything that links to the article, so if a redirect exists for the article (say, from mallorca acne) then we'd make that bold. At least that's how I do it, perhaps it varies between people. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 15:08, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
See MOS:BEGIN and WP:BOLDTITLE for guidance on the first sentence of an article. Cyclone's examples are perfect. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 16:28, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Move of Parvovirus B19 to Erythrovirus

More opinions requested at Talk:Erythrovirus#Move. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:15, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

DYK

Tropical ulcer appears to be on the Did you know? list. If you know something about this, it might benefit from a few more sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:06, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I (1) added several facts w/ citations from from Andrews', a great secondary source, (2) added a reference section with several really good primary articles (though I did not cite them), (3) added a see also section, (4) added several fact tags, and (5) placed a wikify banner because the article needs a little cleanup. Hope this helps. kilbad (talk) 21:32, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Rebound effect and rebound insomnia

Should rebound effect and rebound insomnia be merged? I was going to flag up a merge proposal but thought if I did I could be waiting a year before anyone posted on the article as they are both very small articles.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:55, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Rebound effect is more general then rebound insomnia that applies specifically with benzos. But it seems one encompasses the other and both are short. So merging rebound insomnia in effect would be reasonable.--Doc James (talk) 21:37, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Doc James, I merged the two articles. It made sense since rebound anxiety redirected to rebound effect.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Autoimmune disease / Autoimmunity

Why do we have two articles about the exact same medical condition? --Thermoproteus (talk) 22:01, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

They need merging. However, autoimmunity is a biological phenomenon, while autoimmune disease is a group of diseases with autoimmunity as the underlying disease process. JFW | T@lk 22:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Autoimmune disease appears to be primarily List of autoimmune diseases, while Autoimmunity discusses the mechanisms. You could propose a merge if you wanted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:34, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
I proposed a merge. IMHO, Autoimmunity should be merged into Autoimmune disease. --Thermoproteus (talk) 00:11, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd probably propose the other way round. Autoimmunity is in a far better state. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 18:00, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Post-polio syndrome

Pretty much completely rewritten the article due it's dire state beforehand. Still hoping to get a featured topic on poliomyelitis by the end of next year. I've still got some work to do on treatment, and I need to find a good source on epidemiology, but otherwise I think I've done all I can do with the resources I've got to hand. Is there any chance someone could take a look and give me a quick review? I'm not too bothered about an in-depth review at the moment but a little feedback would be good. Cheers. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 17:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Do you own Andrews' or Fitzpatrick's?

Do any of you own Andrews' or Fitzpatrick's dermatology books (see WP:DERM:REF for full references)? kilbad (talk) 12:39, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Presumably everyone is allowed to use other sources, too, seeing as it'd be a pain for everyone to go out and buy a copy of one of these books. Anyway, I've added a section to that WP:DERM:REF page for online citations to make it easier for people who aren't familiar with the usual way. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 16:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
I was simply asking if anyone else owned them, and in no way was telling editors what sources they should be using! However, thank you for your addition to WP:DERM:REF. kilbad (talk) 19:24, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Why are those two texts the only recommended secondary sources? Have they been agreed by consensus, or has an individual chosen them? If the latter, a cynical reader might assume that the person who recommends them has a conflict of interest (although of course I assume good faith). Axl ¤ [Talk] 22:31, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
Those sources were not agreed on by consensus, and I think a renaming of that section would be perfectly fine. I was simply trying to recommend some decent sources. What would be a better name for that section? "Good sources," Some sources," "Example sources," whatever you want...? I apologize for stepping on any toes, I certainly was not trying to causes any problems, or discourage any editors. kilbad (talk) 00:47, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes I own fitzpatricks --Doc James (talk) 01:14, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

"Example sources" is fine. Axl ¤ [Talk] 01:23, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
It now says "example," sorry again. kilbad (talk) 03:01, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Contact Dermatitis

Currently there is an article on contact dermatitis, as well as several, more specific articles on several types of contact dermatitis, with the most notable one probably being with regards to poison ivy. However, contact dermatitis is a very large topic, with there being many different types of contact dermatitis, many with differing treatments. Several large texts have even been written on this subject alone (see Amazon for example: [28]). Therefore, I wanted to know how to approach this topic. I am willing to make separate articles on the major various types of contact dermatitis, but wanted to get the community's opinion first. Thanks again! kilbad (talk) 16:29, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the usual approach is to leave sub-articles on deserving topics, and place redirects from those that don't exist yet, until they can be split from the main article -if that makes sense . --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:24, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Ok, well I have put together a working list of contact dermatitis article that I would like to create at Talk:Contact_dermatitis#Creating_articles_concerning_types_of_contact_dermatitis. What do you think of the list (which is essentially a list of the major types, taken from Andrews')? I would like to get some feedback before I go forward. kilbad (talk) 19:37, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Naming conventions

The Unipolar cell article is named Unipolar neuron. The Bipolar neuron article is named Bipolar cell. The Pseudounipolar cell article is named Pseudounipolar neuron. The Multipolar cell article is named Multipolar neuron. The Pyramidal neuron article is named the Pyramidal cell. The granule neuron article is named the Granule cell. The Anterior horn cell article is named Anterior horn (spinal cord). Is it ok to flutter back and forth? SriMesh | talk 01:17, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd imagine so but you should check with WikiProject Neuroscience, they deal with this kind of stuff. Here we deal with diseases. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 01:40, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Sickness behavior

There's a new article at Sickness behavior that I'm not quite sure what to make of. I discovered it when its author was building the web in basic articles like Disease. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 22 December 2008 (UTC) (accidentally cross-posted to MEDRS; please ignore that thread).

It is true, the body releases cytokines which interact with the receptors in brain and body. It causes people to feel fatigued (which makes a sick person want to rest) and lowers mood sometimes. I find when I have a cold that I feel "low in mood", get disturbed sleep and don't concentrate well. Most people sleep more when they are ill though which is partly to do with the increased cytokine activity effecting the brain, I get the opposite reaction. I wondered why I felt different when I felt ill and searched pubmed and google and also spoke to an immunologist about it and he confirmed that the immune system interacts with the brain. The immune system also has some interesting interactions with the sleep wake cycle. Young children can even hallucinate or have seizures when they have a bad cold or flu although that may be more to do with raised temperature. Whether sickness behaviour is a diagnosable condition I dunno but what the article says is pretty much accurate. From what my immunologist told me there is a growing research interest how the immune system interacts with the brain. I think that it is quite an interesting article. I might add it to my favourites. :=)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

It is basically the bodys way of saying rest, stop moving about until you feel better, a survival thing and the best way is for your body to modulate your receptors and make you have a run down depressed mood, fatigued, tired and achey. :=) LOL.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a section that says "Anorexia limits the ingestion of foods and so the availability in the gut and from gut absorption of iron and zinc that might aid bacterial reproduction." that I found hard to understand and had to read a number of times so I've rephrased it. Can you check I've kept it's meaning? Is Mise (talk) 05:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Bot error in articles

A number of articles in the Category:Diseases and disorders have been accidentally duplicated by a bot (see for example Abdallat Davis Farrage syndrome). Since it would be quite a lot of work going through all the 500+ articles, can this be fixed by a bot? Or any other ideas how to go about this job? Thanks --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 22:10, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Please see here. It was a bug in MediaWiki, not Cydebot necessarily, and it was fixed quickly. If there are any remaining bugged edits, please fix them. The fix is easy — just remove the duplicate sections. --Cyde Weys 14:15, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

The fix isn't so easy since it would require to work through more than 500 articles. Again — can anyone do this more quickly using a bot? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 20:34, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
I went through the pile of articles in Category:Diseases and disorders using WP:AWB, got only a few articles, don't know how many more are affected. If anyone comes across more, let us know here please. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:52, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! If I come across individual articles, I can do them myself. Cheers --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 08:54, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Teddy-Sumo's Disease

This hoax article about a non-existing disease survived for 10 months... not so good imho. Any ideas on how to find articles like these earlier? --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:22, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

It depends on the modus operandi of the hoaxer. If they are vain enough, they create links to their faux disease in other articles. That's how I usually find out about them. Alternatively, they can crop up as incredible items in "what links here" lists - provided the hoaxer has tried to wikify his creation.
New pages patrol is where the real culling needs to happen. Sadly, a clever hoaxer will make his work sound just realistic enough for an uninitiated newpages patroller to pass an article off as legit. JFW | T@lk 20:02, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, I'm not sure there is anything to be done other than for more trained professionals to become new page patrollers, and I'm not sure that will ever happen. We just have to catch these things as they arise. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 20:06, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
Does this mean I have to stop billing Medicare for it? :( MastCell Talk 06:15, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Request for eyes on a featured article

Can I ask for some outside eyes and a sanity check on anabolic steroid? This is a featured article, but I find its choice and (worse) its presentation of sources often questionable. There is currently some dispute as to whether the article accurately represents the current state of knowledge on anabolic steroid side effects. I'm actually pretty concerned about the article quality, especially as it's already an FA, but I would appreciate some outside input and fresh perspectives because of the ever-present risk of tunnel vision. Any input would be appreciated. MastCell Talk 02:11, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

It was promoted with very slim support: only two supports and one oppose (what looks like a third support is a duplicate—Dr. Cash Supported twice, so Raul might have misread). I opposed it on the previous FACs. If the article isn't brought into shape quickly, I would suggest submitting it to WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:15, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Sandy, you opposed it? That is good to know. Where did I get the idea you were neutral? Guess that was a wrong idea of mine. —Mattisse (Talk) 02:21, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
I haven't always been FAC delegate; please do try to look at the dates (they are linked above). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
FAR is a good forum as it will allow shortcomings to be mapped out too, and allow more folks to take a look. Or we can just start listing issues on the talk page. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:39, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
It's not in good shape (never was IMO). Some of the sourcing is iffy. I just did a bit of MoS cleanup, but there's much more. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Took a quick look at the article. It overstates the certainty of the literature. As these drugs are illigal research is unfortunately limited and this is not reflected very well.--Doc James (talk) 14:55, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I know nothing about the theme; however the fact that two subsections (5 and 6) are only, or mostly US-centred (minor mention to UK), there are two different sections on administration, the article has a trivia section (even if named other controversies), and there is a list-like subsection (medical uses) are enough reasons to take it to FAR and probably demote it. This is not one of best wikipedia articles. Best regards.--Garrondo (talk) 15:31, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Berengario da Carpi

Berengario da Carpi should probably be one of the biographies under the scope of the project (it is not at the moment). The problem is that the article is duplicated (See: Giacomo Berengario da Carpi and Jacopo Berengario da Carpi. A merge was proposed more than a year ago and nobody commented or procceded with it. I do not know how a merge is done, but it would be great it somebody could do it. (A redirect from Berengario da Carpi would also be great). Best regards. --Garrondo (talk) 18:28, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Merging isn't technically challenging; just rewrite the article you want to keep with copy-pasted useful fragments from the article you are merging. Once the old article contains no more useful information, replace it with #REDIRECT [[TITLE-of-new-main-article-to-which-you-are-redirecting]]. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
And on the resulting talk page, you can paste in this text:
{{WPMED |class=C |importance=Low}}
and it will be added to the categories for this project. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Done: all info in one of the articles was duplicated. --Garrondo (talk) 15:49, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

AVI troubles

BioMed Central contains a useful case report which has pulmonary angiography videos. Problem is, I can't seem to open them. I'm wondering if it's just me or if it's the source code, so I'm wondering if anyone else is able to see the videos and, if so, could convert them to a suitable format and upload them to Commons for me. I want to use them to furnish pulmonary embolism even more. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

I can open them in Windows Media Player but I have all sorts of plug-ins. Do you have a preference on format? I could convert to WMV. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 19:19, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
On my work, unadultered, computer it too fails to play, but I note the message which came up stating "Playing the movie within this page requires QuickTime 3 or later and JavaScript" - hope that helps. David Ruben Talk 19:32, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
My computer opened the online version with Quicktime but then crashed on me. I only managed to open it by opening it externally in WMP. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 19:44, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Annoyingly, the only video format Commons accepts is Ogg Theora! --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:05, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Can't help you then, I'm afraid. I can't find a single free converter for AVI to OGV. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 21:31, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
It's probably a lot of trouble and I haven't seen the image to see if it's worth the trouble, but the Theora site says it can be done with http://v2v.cc/~j/ffmpeg2theora/. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:36, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately I can't seem to open that application. If you're desperate then I could send you the files post-conversion to OGV but I don't think the videos add much to the images there. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 22:51, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Okay, we'll leave it then. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:45, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Transfusion medicine

Hi I recently added a section called UK to the article and added some information from the BMJ, could someone who know a little more have a look over it to see if it is the appropriate place for such information. Regards 安東尼 TALK 圣诞快乐 19:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what to do with that particular article. Most of the relevant information on what happens in the field is in the blood donation and blood transfusion articles. Some of the transfusion information could be moved into the article about the specialty. The specialty could also be merged with the main article, since there really isn't much there other than local requirements of various nations. The ophthalmology article appears to be a good template for articles about medical specialties. SDY (talk) 22:30, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Category deletion discussion

Please see Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_December_31#Categories_named_after_psychological_traits for an opportunity to weight in. —Mattisse (Talk) 00:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Placebo

Please consider commenting on the merge / split discussion here: Talk:Placebo#Placebo-controlled_studies._Split_off_into_new_page.3F_or_merge_with_Clinical_trial Regards —G716 <T·C> 16:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Proposed overhaul of the WP:PHARM category scheme

Input more than welcome here. Happy 2009! :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:20, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Article or DicDef?

Enterohemorrhagic appears to be a dictionary definition -- but should it be turned into an article, or merged into an existing one? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd say this is a good candidate for transwiki over to Wiktionary. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 22:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
The word "enterohemorrhagic", as a qualifier, is almost exclusively used to refer to E. coli O157:H7, aka "EHEC" (enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli). I'm not sure you'd find it in a dictionary either; it's not in Dorlands, for instance. I'd recommend checking other medical dictionaries (of the dead tree variety if possible) and redirecting to Escherichia coli O157:H7 if you can't find it elsewhere. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 22:53, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Seborrhoeic dermatitis

I find that in Andrews' and Fitzpatrick's (see here for full references), the disease is spelled "Seborrheic dermatitis." However, the article is spelled Seborrhoeic dermatitis with a redirect from Seborrheic dermatitis. Therefore, my question is, which spelling should be the article, and which the redirect, and why? kilbad (talk) 22:47, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

The spelling is merely a difference in language between English-speaking nations. Tradition here is that we don't bother changing it unless there is a really good reason, such as the article subject having a particularly strong link to one nation rather than the other. In this case, I'd leave it alone. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 22:50, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. WP:ENGVAR is the relevant guideline if you'd like to read more about it. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 22:54, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Ahhh I knew there was a guideline somewhere. Cheers! —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 23:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
In the text from WHO cited it is spelt as it is now, so I'd guess it is the international spelling.安東尼 TALK 圣诞快乐 23:32, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Categorization of pharmacology-related articles

I have started a discussion thread at WT:PHARM:CAT. kilbad (talk) 20:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Histominaphobia

I'm not sure if this new article is fictitious or a misspelling. Any ideas? Eve Hall (talk) 22:28, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I've made a comment at the AfD page here. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 23:08, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Copyvio of endocrinology diagrams

File:Acromegalysympt.JPEG, File:Cushing'ssyndrome .jpeg, File:Symptomatichyperparathyroidism.jpeg

Anyone else recognize these images? I can't remember where I've seen them before but I'm quite sure it was a textbook. Uploader has a history of copyvio uploads and I think it's unlikely he/she created these. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 11:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Uploader told me: Rubin's pathology was the answer. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 12:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Amoebiasis

Does Amoebiasis imply Entamoeba? I don't think it does (and if it does, it makes it much harder to write about Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis), but User:Entamoeba disagrees with me. There may be some parallels to the infectious mononucleosis/Cytomegalovirus issue from November. Feedback at Talk:Entamebiasis would be welcomed. --Arcadian (talk) 19:53, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

The literature seems to disagree with you :), per recent reviews such as PMID 18828976 and PMID 12660071 (both of which explicitly define "amebiasis" as E. histolytica infection), Harrison's ("Amebiasis is an infection with the intestinal protozoan Entamoeba histolytica [...]"), Goodman & Gilman's... More importantly for WP:MEDMOS compliance, what does the ICD say? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 20:09, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Hodgkin's lymphoma

I deleted a bunch of unsourced information about people with Hodgkin's lymphoma today. It's been a long, slow process -- fact-tagged everything in October, and I've been slowly deleting a couple at a time recently.

But someone has been repeatedly adding a new name recently. It's a red link, and supposedly he's the most important student in the history of Hodgkin's disease (or something like that), so I killed all the unsourced names. "____ has a disease", no matter what the disease is, is always a WP:BLP violation unless there's both a source and a good reason to think that the subject doesn't consider it a massive invasion of privacy. Google gives me nothing for "Josh Lam" Hodgkin, so I'm assuming that this is your average, basic, ham-fisted self-promotion. I'm at (or near) 3RR, and it's bedtime anyway; would someone else like to take over for a few hours? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I've undone the change again! BTW, 3RR does not apply to BLP, but if this continues then admin intervention seems inevitable. Colin°Talk 10:46, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
And, I've added the page to my watchlist. Semi-protection might be in order. Graham Colm Talk 10:55, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
I'm gonna give you a hand bringing this up to scratch. It's a mess but it's got a good backbone. Well done on the cleanup. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 11:07, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
Josh Lam doesn't have a Wikipedia page so I didn't doubt for a second it was vandalism. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 11:46, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

←Regarding Josh Lam, see my talk page. He's supposedly a medical student who underwent treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma, but he's unable to provide a source. So unfortunately, that's a BLP violation and it can't be added. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 20:42, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I have reluctantly semi-protected the page for 24 hours because of the persistence of the new editor. Graham. Graham Colm Talk 21:35, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
You didn't waste any time in getting right to work, huh Graham? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

More eyes needed at Phelps/Marfan

Since his Olympic performances, there have been repeated poorly sourced additions to both Michael Phelps and Marfan syndrome. An explanation begins here; more eyes on both articles would be helpful. Please watchlist both. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:25, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Watchlisted the latter, will try to help. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 20:28, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Marfan syndrome is pretty well tuned up (MOS and citation wise) in case others want to work on the content now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:46, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Risperidone

The article on Risperidone seems to be cut off midsentence. Could someone please check this? 80.56.19.27 (talk) 06:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC) Cees Kleinveld

Do not see it. --Doc James (talk) 21:26, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Risperidone doesn't seem to have any problems that I can find. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:29, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I looked very hard last night, and tabbed through the revision history diff by diff and couldn't find anything. Perhaps the user could clear their cache and then report back? Viriditas (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Staphylococcal infection

Hello. At least two different accounts, 147.153.159.85 (talk · contribs) and 74.195.229.118 (talk · contribs) continue to blank the "clinical significance" section [29][30] without using edit summaries or the talk page. Can someone knowledgeable about the topic take a look at this and determine if it is simple vandalism or if there is a reason for the blanking? Thanks in advance. Viriditas (talk) 10:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

looks like vandalism --Doc James (talk) 21:18, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, and I've reverted twice. I would just like to have more eyes on the page. Does this project use a watchlist to monitor things like this? Viriditas (talk) 21:36, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Have added to my watch list.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
And, I have semi-protected the page for 24 hours. Graham. Graham Colm Talk 22:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, to both of you. Viriditas (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Osteitis fibrosa cystica

Hey everyone. I'm currently attempting to write a GA-worthy article on Osteitis fibrosa cystica. My peer review came across as a bit brief. If anyone has a chance, could they drop by and offer any advice/points of interest?

Thank youStrombollii (talk) 06:40, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Anyone looking to write a GA review? Haha. If anyone has the time, Osteitis fibrosa cystica is now a GA nominee, and anyone willing to review would be immensely appreciated. Strombollii (talk) 23:10, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
I went through and took a look - mostly I just made a long series of minor copyedits. I'm not going to officially review it myself, having contributed to it. Let me look at the big picture there and I can give you some more feedback. Good luck! MastCell Talk 17:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Overweight

Blubberboy92 keeps adding a picture of an obese person to replace that of someone who is overweight. Will revert him a second time but wondering if someone keep an eye on things aswell.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Pulmonology wikiproject

Greetings! I am not sure this is the right place to be talking about this, but I have proposed a pulmonology wikiproject that will branch off of WP:MED on the wikiprojects home page. There are a few other specialties as med project branch-offs. I am highly interested in pulmonology and would really like to see this project happen. Anybody with me? Please comment on this idea. Thank You --Tyrol5 (talk) 23:41, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Can you tell us where you've proposed it? We have an internal page for such proposals here; if you've used the Wikipedia-wide process (which is just fine), we'd love to add a link on the internal page to your proposal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
I proposed it on the main wikiprojects page here- Wikipedia talk:List of WikiProjects. Just so you know, I want it to be a full project just like project nephrology (WP:KIDNEY) or project gastroenterology. --Tyrol5 (talk) 00:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
We're in the process of trying to convert most inactive WikiProjects into Task Forces under WikiProject Medicine, so we can have a more organised system. I'd suggest creating a task force over a WikiProject, as new WikiProjects have a really bad habit of dying off or becoming a subset of this anyway. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 00:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
How do task forces work and what do you do? Thanks in advance --Tyrol5 (talk) 00:55, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
How did you manage to find Wikipedia talk:List of WikiProjects? That page hasn't been used for years. The main proposal page is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals; however, I agree that a task force is a better choice for the collaboration. A task force is basically a sub-group of a project with a specific focus. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/Task forces for a general description of task forces. Within WPMED, you can create formal proposal for a pulmonology task force at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Task forces. Also, please see Talk:Pulmonology regarding my proposed merger of pulmonologist into pulmonology. --Scott Alter 04:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I found the list of wikiprojects by google search. I also happen to be the writer of the pulmonologist article and just would like to verify with you on your merger proposal that you want the content of the pulmonologist article moved into the appropriate places on the pulmonology page. If this is what you would like to see happen, I, being the writer of the pulmonologist article, would be happy to make this happen. Thank You --Tyrol5 (talk) 16:31, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Just a little note that we don't tend to refer to articles being ours or anything like that, all editors here take equal precidence over an article. See WP:OWN. Wikipedia, instead, works on consensus and team work. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 16:55, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for that correction, Cyclonenim, I did not intend for it to mean something like that, glad you let me know. Anyway, back to the topic of the merger. What should be done? I could move the content of the pulmonologist article over onto the appropriate sections of the pulmonology article (for example moving the eduction and training section of the pulmonologist article to the training section of the pulmonology article). I am very open to suggestions. Thank you --Tyrol5 (talk) 17:17, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Update- Done The merger between pulmonology and pulmonologist has been completed. --Tyrol5 (talk) 17:21, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Pulmonology task force created

The task force page is here: "Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Pulmonology task force". Axl ¤ [Talk] 22:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

number system used for prescriptions

I've posted here before with no real response. I'm hoping to find the name that was assigned to the numbering system used on prescriptions. For 1, 2, 3, 4 on a prescription, doctors usually write a vertical line with the a horizontal line on top with a dot over it. It is sorta like an adjusted Roman numeral system. I've asked the librarian here at the medical school and he said he found the system being used as early as 1900. It would be a great article for wikipedia. It's esoteric and unimportant to most doctors, but the history would be fascinating. Something we all use, but few know the history behind it. Thank you, 128.125.28.42 (talk) 19:15, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

You did recieve a real response from Jfdwolff (talk · contribs), and his opinion was that it's probably something specific that your hospital does/your regional district does or whatever. I can't find anything on Google about this so JFW's response seems likely. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 19:35, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I dunno, I was taught to do this, and I've seen a lot of people write scripts this way. The idea is presumably to avoid confusion, since there are both dots and crosshatches indicating the # of pills to be taken at any given time. That said, I don't know that this system has a particular name or detailed history - it's probably akin to other elements of medical shorthand. And it will of course become obsolete when we go to all-electronic prescriptions, which will happen Any Day Now... :) MastCell Talk 19:44, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I believe it is Apothecaries' system. See this from 1878's "A Manual of prescription writing" (page 12): "In writing the cardinal symbols it is always customary to draw a line over the top and then to indicate each i by a distinct dot. This enables the apothecary to distinguish between, for instance, a carelessly written v and ii. A single i, or the i at the end of a combination, is written like a j, these letters being interchangeable in Latin." Also, see this, this, and this. --Arcadian (talk) 22:43, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
Interesting stuff - nice finds. MastCell Talk 22:52, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I stand corrected, nice one! —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 22:54, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

so are we or aren't we using the term Childhood Obesity

When I was a first year medical student, we learned that Obesity was a term reserved for people over the age of 18 and we used predisposition to obesity. Now, the news, billboards, newspapers are all writing the term "childhood obesity." Did an offical medical association / nutritional association ever weigh in on the terminology debate? Thank you. Personally, I find it more motivating to call it childhood obesity and I think the term should be adopted formally if not already. 128.125.28.42 (talk) 19:18, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Can across a journal article a while back that said that overweight was the preferred term as it is less stigmatizing. However childhood obesity is used frequently in all circles. I added this to the page. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:31, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Protandim needs review

Protandim says:

"Protandim is a composition of five botanicals (more specifically, phytonutrients) that act with synergy such that the combined effect exceeds the sum of the individual ingredient contributions." "Protandim is not an antioxidant per se, but provides antioxidant therapy by inducing the genes that encode a family of protective enzymes, including superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT). Protandim’s mechanism of action is to prevent free radical damage by increasing endogenous catalytic pathways, whereas traditional antioxidant supplements provide only stoichiometric scavenging of free radicals or other oxidants."

Concern has been expressed at Talk:Protandim and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Rational_Skepticism#Protandim that the claims made in this article are not adequately sourced.
Could project members please review this? Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 18:28, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It would be enormously helpful if you used the existing two-and-a-half refs to create inline refs. You can do that with the <ref> tags, or use the author-date parenthetical style, which is very easy: just put (Sharp 2007) at the end of any sentence supported by the Sharp paper, and so forth. After you've done that, it will be very easy to see which paragraphs have refs and which ones don't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Looked into this page and it two references. One ref is to the products manufacturer. The other ref is to an observational trial. Look at pub med. There are two publications. Neither one placebo controlled.
This page is advertising and I think should be tagged for speedy deletion.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:48, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
The anon has contacted me on my talk page and says that s/he does not know enough to figure out what the refs do/don't support. Because they're such weak sources anyway, I'll {{prod}} it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:21, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
It gets 72,300 google hits and 7,420 Clusty hits so we should deal with it. I suggest we say it's unsupported by scientific evidence and put a quack medicine label on it.Mccready (talk) 08:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Thomas_S._Cullen

new article on Thomas_S._Cullen of gynecology fame could do with some work. Mccready (talk) 08:20, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Bouveret syndrome

am I spelling it wrong? should be gallstone ileus - i don't think it should redirect to ileus unless it has it's own subsection in the article.

I made the redlink a disambiguation page, with links to what seem to be the most relevant articles at this time. --Una Smith (talk) 04:46, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

LF pic Henri_Albert_Hartmann

would be nice to have a pic of him. I hate the licensing red tape, so if someone else knows how to do it, that would be great. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.125.110.118 (talk) 04:09, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Myelolipoma

Hi gang! I've just created this article. Could someone review it please? Then give me the new article prize!

Cheers! Mattopaedia (talk) 05:50, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

This page

Surely, this should be the doctors' mess, not the doctor's mess, and perhaps we could find a picture that does not include what look like empty beer bottles. —G716 <T·C> 08:20, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The picture is of an actual doctors' mess, and the mess on display is of course meant to be a humorous play of words... but don't hesitate to correct any spelling errors. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 11:44, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
For non-MDs that image may be rather alienating, as in "someone else's rec room". Students don't dare enter the faculty lounge. KWIM? It may turn some potential contributors away from this project. --Una Smith (talk)
And surely it's time to take down the Christmas tree! Why not have a little comp for a new picture? LeeVJ (talk) 23:18, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
I made a few changes to the header, along these lines and in the interest of inclusiveness; feel free to edit or revert. I agree we could use a new picture, but don't have any suggestions at present. MastCell Talk 20:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
I'd question the dedication of a contributor who was turned away by a photo. FWIW, I'm a med student and don't find the photo alienating. twirligigLeave one! ⋄ Check me out! 02:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Calories consumption

I have been working on the page on obesity. Have found a great map. Wondering if someone could create one for wikipedia similar to this? Not sure how copy right works around these sorts of things?

http://www.fao.org/statistics/yearbook/vol_1_1/pdf/map07.pdf

--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:13, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The map itself is copyrighted, but it can be recreated. I would gladly do it if I had the time, but right now I can't. I suggest you place a request at the Graphics Lab or ask Lokal Profil (talk · contribs) directly; he has plenty of experience creating this sort of map from datasets, and does excellent work. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:44, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Thromboxane synthase vs Thromboxane synthetase

right now they redirect to the same article... but aren't they different enzymes? I'm having real trouble looking this up online. Anyone know their clotting thrombosis cold?

They are one and the same. My high school biology taught me that synthetases use energy from ATP to do their stuff, while synthases do not; calling a synthase "synthetase" would therefore be a misnomer. However, I'm sure the current knowledge/nomenclature is a little more complicated and more accurate than that :) The folks over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology can probably help you. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 21:33, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you! I just was going to post that I finally found that information on the Ligase article. So, does thromboxane synthase (or synthetase) use a nucleoside trisphosphate or not?) 128.125.28.232 (talk) 21:41, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
I will start using wp:mcb (shortcut that works in the search bar) more often. Thank you!
According to this database the recommended name is Thromboxane-A synthase and the reaction does not require ATP. More details here. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:29, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Clinicaltrials.gov

Special:Linksearch for *.clinicaltrials.gov shows a long list of articles that are promoting clinical trials. While this may be a reliable source for some statements ("____ is currently in clinical trials"), it should not be in the ==External links== section, and there shouldn't be sections of articles dedicated to listing and describing current clinical trials. I'm not going to manage to remove them all myself, but if anyone else is looking for a fairly simple clean-up task, perhaps you would like to help me remove some advertising. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:24, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

New Year's resolutions

It must have been several people's New Year's resolutions to abuse Wikipedia. Would anyone with more patience than me please help out a bit with the newbie at Brain fog? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:50, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Watchlisted. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 20:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Added some comments. Looks like a colloquialism for Cognitive Dysfunction.[2] Maybe it should be a redirect to this term? --Doc James (talk) 21:22, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Took a look and then ended up at Brain fag, a similar(?) condition found now mainly in sub-Saharan West Africa, especially among male students who study English! Several refs, none of which includes a url. Can this be for real?? The article has been there since 2007, and there are a number of Google hits. - Hordaland (talk) 22:53, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh yes it can. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 23:04, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
I was amused to read that you are "some advertising tool for business that includes the medical industrial complex", WhatamIdoing! ;) There sure are some angry people around. I find it particularly ironic that this should show up on a page of that name. Will keep an eye out, FWIW. Cheers, Basie (talk) 23:56, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Nursing WikiProject

Given the spur of task forces being created, I went looking for more candidates and came across WikiProject Nursing. Bar Basie (talk · contribs), this project is pretty much dead to the ground. They also use our assessment criteria, our guide to articles (WP:MEDMOS) and most like WP:MEDRS too. I don't see why it can't be made part of WP:MED. Would this be a good candidate for a task force? Any objections? —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 15:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The traditional tension between "nursing practice" and "medical practice" is the reason I haven't proposed it. I worried (perhaps unnecessarily) that some nurses might object.
If you wanted to start the process, then the first step is to leave a friendly-but-no-pressure note at the project's talk page. If you wanted to wait a while, then that's fine with me: Converting an existing project takes about an hour, plus a tedious process with the category folks, and we have a bit of a backlog to work through.
Speaking of which: {{WPMED}} is ready for an update with the next planned batch of task forces, but some helpful person has permanently fully protected the template. Is there an admin with a few minutes free to deal with that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
{{WPMED}} update  Done David Ruben Talk 23:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
nurses on overnight shifts who are killing time might be an interesting group of people to recruit to write for wikis... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.125.28.42 (talk) 19:10, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
As WhatamIdoing notes, nurses will probably object. I was trying to decide if I objected, because the same thought did occur to me! However I think that internationally, nursing and medicine have an unstable relationship. In some countries a nurse is perfectly willing to be called 'a medical person', but in others the phrase provokes outrage. The ensuing discussions might end up wasting an unreasonable amount of time for both medicine and nursing editors that could be better spent working on articles.
I think inclusion of nursing as a medical project taskforce might even discourage some nurses from participating, and the key for me at the moment is to generate interest. I suggest that we encourage interested parties to join both projects, and promote where possible cooperation between the two.
I have only recently started editing WP 'in earnest', and I would like to wait and see what effect improving the quality of the nursing articles and the level of activity at WP:NURSE has on project membership. Cheers, Basie (talk) 00:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Very difficult. I think there is much to say about both. Nursing would not be happening outside the medical framework, but it is not essentially defined by medical process. At the same time, there could be clashes if (excessive) emphasis is placed on newfangled ideas like "nursing diagnosis". I see no problem in having two wikiprojects, provided there remains a good working relationship between WP:NURSING and WP:MED. JFW | T@lk 00:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

"Nursing diagnosis" is rather oldfangled, if you'll pardon the expression. Most practicing nurses where I come from wince at the term. My fervent hope is that it will vanish from nursing education before too long. As to good working relationships, my sentiments exactly. Cheers, Basie (talk) 01:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
  1. ^ http://www.ti.ubc.ca/
  2. ^ http://www.ei-resource.org/expert-columns/dr.-jacob-teitelbaums-column/treating-cognitive-dysfunction-(brain-fog)-in-cfs-&-fibromyalgia/
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