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WikiDoc
For discussion, please see the WikiDoc talk page!
Introduction
The last edit to the Wikiproject "Medical Conditions" was over a year ago, and the main instigator (User:Ram-Man) made his last edit in September 2003.
It appears that Wikipedia needs a dedicated team of doctors to carry out some long-overdue integration, standardisation and upgrading.
Things to do
The WikiDocs team would concentrate on:
- Composing pages from an informed point-of-view
- Updating old pages
- Linking pages of every medical specialty with "blue boxes" or sidebars (e.g. all forms of gastrointestinal bleed under gastroenterology)
- Finding a way to integrate references to journals, PubMed and other sources into the text; some pages employ superscript numbers (see diabetes mellitus)
- Provide images!! Practicing docs have copyright over images they produce, with the patient's consent when necessary
- Determine who the articles are aimed at' (see below)
- Establishing a hierarchical structure for relevant topics (specialties of medicine, drugs, procedures, anatomical features, etc. etc.) so that useful lists can be made
- Establishing a consistent style and terminology for medical articles
Who are the audience
As User:Kpjas rightly pointed out (see talk page), it is imperative that some agreement is reached on the potential readership of the medical articles. Indeed, the WikiBooks are aimed at people looking for an in-depth text, and Wikipedia articles will have to strike a balance between a very accessible general text for the innocent bystander and a resource for people with a basic grounding in the physiological sciences and pathology.
Roughly, there are three levels of medical articles:
- Easy to understand, when phrased properly, by the layman (example: Peptic ulcer)
- Moderately hard to understand (example: Insulin resistance)
- Hard for basically everybody (example: Amyloid) - usually due to the nature of the subject
Of course Wikipedia offers a wealth of supporting information in the form of its hyperlinks. Whoever hasn't heard of a particular phenomenon or disease mentioned in an article can easily open the relevant article.
My proposal would be to compose articles (or edit them accordingly) to the level of someone with some basic grounding in the sciences. Judicious use of links should do the rest. There's little point explaining proton pump inhibitors to someone who has never learnt that [ H+ ] determines acididy and that -log [ H+ ] leads to a number from 0 to 14.
- I suggest the articles all include both the easy to understand and the moderately hard. Just start easy and get dense as the article progresses. Folks will give up as the going gets tough. Kd4ttc 02:21, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Indeed, Kd4ttc, this might be the best solution of the "readership level" question. I'm affraid, though, that such an approach will disrupt the flow of articles, especially where the subject matter is simply very hard to express in "widely-read-layman's" terms. See my recent work on PPARs; this is just impossible to explain to a Wikipedian with an interest in the history of ancient Greece... JFW | T@lk 08:34, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, it is an art to hit the right balance. Not all articles will do well this way, presuming an introductory talk can be followed by an in depth talk. Occasionally I see books written with the easy stuff in large type and the detailed stuff in smaller type indented. That might help in complex articles. However, a lot of articles will do well with an introduction followed by deeper discussion. Is there precedence on Wikipedia for complex discussions in other disciplines? Kd4ttc 03:01, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
List of members (in formation)
Between brackets: field of interest
- User:Jfdwolff (endocrinology, hematology)
- User:Ksheka (cardiology)
- User:Kd4ttc (gastroenterology) / Naperville (near Chicago) Illinois, United States
- User:Kpjas (as a GP I know everything ;-))) I'd love to participate but I'm rather busy with other Wikimedia projects mainly WP-Pl
- User:Alex.tan (general clinical topics)
- User:Diberri (physiology)
- User:JWSchmidt (pharmacology, basic sciences)
- User:Kosebamse (anesthesiology, intensive care, emergency medicine) Sorry to leave again so early after joining this promising project, but I am afraid it's getting too much. I wish you all the best. Vivat, crescat, floreat! Kosebamse
- User:Erich gasboy (anesthesiology)
- User:Sodium (Really a med student, so less clinical and more med-studenty theory things)
- Alteripse 22:10, 2 May 2004 (UTC) (pediatric endocrinology)
- User:Tristanb (lab stuff, and whatever i'm currently studying/interested in.)
Potential members (still to be engaged):
- Alex is taking his boards, so leave him alone for a week. He says his wife has said he's spending too much time here, already. Kd4ttc 20:58, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Alex is not taking his "boards". He did get married though, in March 2004. He's just an unspecialised medical officer (a.k.a. resident medical officer), so he has an interest in everything. Will be very happy to participate now and then (to the extent he already has been). :-) Alex.tan 03:09, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- wife has said he's spending too much time here
- This sounds hauntingly familiar. Perhaps we ought to start a Wikipedia Doctors' Wives group? JFW 21:04, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- As in Wikiwidow? Kd4ttc 02:32, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Great idea guys! I got my wife to join in!! but I meant good idea about a medical cartel.. I'm guessing many of use wouldn't be up for a lot more than an hour or so a month. I'm getting interested in the idea of wiki-MCQs as a medical educational tool. So will be spending most of the time I'm allowed by Kitty working up that idea (see my page) !--Erich gasboy 13:34, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Work to do
Blue boxes
Well, there's the blue boxes... Thankfully this is improving; the MediaWiki:medicine box is there, to link the major specialisms.
Cleanup
Some rather central medical articles are very stubbly, and require cleanup to measure up to some form of standard. The hepatitis page was listed for cleanup because it was a tremendous mess.
Medical pages needing cleanup:
- Respiratory distress syndrome - very brief and incorrect
- please list any pages here that might require cleanup
Medical eponyms
List of eponymous diseases - there are thousands of them (see the website http://www.whonamedit.com). When you come accross an eponymic disease, please add it to the list. The page Sign (medicine) contains a smaller list of signs during physical examination, such as the famed Babinksky... JFW | T@lk 22:56, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, medical eponyms are one of my personal favourites. My professor of internal medicine at Leiden University (Prof Edo Meinders) was always referring to diseases by their Germanic eponyms (Basedow's for Graves' disease, Boeck for sarcoidosis). Allright, it's oldfashioned but fun. JFW | T@lk 21:22, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Peer review
We all make edits in medical articles, but sometimes it can be tremendously useful to have stuff reviewed by someone else. This is especially true when one's working slightly outside his/her field of expertise. Most WikiDoc members have a field of interest; they might be willing to peer-review work by others. JFW | T@lk 21:15, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Basic topics
Despite a lot of work already having been done, the medicine article is still a mess. Same goes for many articles linked from there. Perhaps we should look into Encarta's or Britannica's similar articles, not to copy them, but to get an idea what such articles might be like. Kosebamse 20:33, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- I composed some main "specialism" pages, such as oncology, nephrology and pulmology. I'm less familiar with the surgical subspecialisms. The medicine page needs some very basic stuff i.e. what it is and what it is not. Most other relevant stuff is in medical history, physical examination, sign (medicine), symptom... JFW | T@lk 10:56, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The naming issue
Finally, I've gathered the courage to directly address the naming of medical pages on the naming policy page (Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (common names)). This problem has raged on a number of issues, most notably heart attack, and it's time this is discussed at policy level instead of repeating the same arguments all over again.
Kd4ttc has come up with an interesting compromise: make a "lay page" on heart attack while all the "heavy stuff" goes on myocardial infarction. This will work on all medical issues where the lay and professional terms deviate. In diabetes mellitus, however, the problem is more complex. As discussed above, escalating complexity might be the key (starting off in lay terminology and "gathering up steam" to invoke cell biology and inheritance patterns).
- I'm actually against the multiple layers of complexity. I feel that the main documents should each have an overview at the top that explains the general issues involved with the topic, and then just jump into the complexities. If people want more they can hit some of the links in the article.
- In order to make the major articles more accessible to the general population, we should make sure the first couple paragraphs are well linkified and easy to read.
- I think that once more of the general articles in WikiDoc are written, it'll become easier to create links to multiple pages, and the less medically educated reader can use the overviews at the top of the pages to understand the topics involved.
- By the way, take a look at the definition of "heart attack" at http://www.britannica.com/ over here. Do we really want to call a heart attack a seizure of the heart? I'm sure we can do better. :-) Ksheka 17:30, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)
- Oooooh! I finally made a compromise! How novel (for me) ;-) I'd add that multiple levels of complexity can be done in one article or a heirarchy or articles. I think it depends on the article. I suspect that it will be intuitivly comfortable how to organize each article. I myself agree with not creating too many articles. The heart attack article was one that seemed to call for some introcuctory article due to some comments that there were non MI conditions that were described as heart attack by non-medical folks. Actually, I'm not sure if that is the best organization - the article is in flux. Let's just have at it and see where it goes. Steve Holland Kd4ttc 03:06, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
As stated, this has been raised at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (common names). JFW | T@lk 01:18, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Work done so far
Blue boxes
A medicine "blue box" has been created on MediaWiki. This will, when support has been gathered, be part of all the main specialism pages (e.g. cardiology and hematology. The idea is to link all topics of every specialism by a deeper level of blue boxes (e.g. all Hepatology articles to one Hepatology box).
Boxes are invariably exclusive. There will be some specialisms (e.g. Sleep medicine) which might ordinarily qualify for the title of "Medical Specialism" but are effectively subspecialisms (of pulmology and otolaryngology, in this case). The debate will have to follow, with adaptations along the way.
Please comment on the work done! JFW | T@lk 02:19, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- The link is: MediaWiki:Medicine. It works by insering the {msg:medicine} (with double brackets, of course) at the bottom of a page.
I've started a box for hematology (refer to: MediaWiki:Hematology). Please correct as needed. I was writing a page dedicated to hematological malignancy but it got wiped out by accident :-( JFW | T@lk 12:04, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The following boxes are in operation (please add when one's complete):
Specialism | MediaWiki page | Wikitext |
Medicine | MediaWiki:Medicine | {{msg:medicine}} |
Hematology | MediaWiki:Hematology | {{msg:hematology}} |
Gastroenterology | MediaWiki:Gastroenterology | {{msg:gastroenterology}} |
Resources
- List of medical topics (a bit backdated?)
- List of rare diseases (a good resource on the correct spelling of some rare disease names)
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia medicine standards (could do with improving)