Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine: Difference between revisions

Welcome to the WikiProject Medicine talk page. If you have comments or believe something can be improved, feel free to post. Also feel free to introduce yourself if you plan on becoming an active editor!

We do not provide medical advice; please see a health professional.

• Unsure about something? Make sure to look at our style and source guidelines.
• Please don't shout, remain civil, be respectful to all, and assume good faith.
• Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
• Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~).
• Threads older than 7 days are automatically archived.
• Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Newsletter/Mailing_list

List of archives

Merged Archive WikiProject Preclinical medicine: 1 Merged Archive WikiProject Clinical medicine: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 WikiProject Medicine Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172

Recent changes in WP:Medicine

Articles and their talkpages:

• In all Medicine articles (not talks)
• In articles with Top-, High-importance
• In articles with Mid-importance
• In articles with Low-importance
• In pages with NA, ???=unknown importance
• In the 1000 most popular articles (source)

Not mainspace:

• In all non-articles
• In all templates
• In Medicine navigation templates

Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
99	1,062	11,550	38,874	20,082	1,176	72,843

List overview · Lists updated: 2015-07-15 · This box:

Impact factor for textbooks?

Some are held in much higher regard than others. Is there a shortcut for readers outside the specialty to tell which are the most widely used and relied upon textbooks? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:26, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

One can go to there local medical school bookstore. Each specialty usually has one or two standard textbooks that nearly all students use. My field has Tintinalli and Rosen. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:27, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Some other clues, perhaps. Has it seen multiple editions? Is it widely held in the libraries of medical schools? Is it held in the NLM? Checking worldcat can usually help with answering these. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:06, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Difficult to tell. Number of editions is a possible indicator, agree. Textbooks which are essentially compilations of chapters each written by a small group of different authors always feel more reliable than textbooks written by one or two authors. Dare I suggest that the nature of the advertising on the cover and the qualifications of the authors are useful indicators too? How many pages does it have? =) Lesion 17:37, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

• http://www.worldcat.org/ will give you how many libraries hold a work (very biased towards western, english speaking, libraries). I consider being held by more than a 1000 libraries 'widely held' Stuartyeates (talk) 06:38, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe there would be some point in creating a list of widely used medical books here, for reference purposes? Or a list of books that we find are exceptionally good? CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 14:26, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, http://www.worldcat.org/, tells me what I want, I think. Thank you, Stuart. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:31, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I actually hate it here and I'm leaving

After this incident I have truly had enough of this place: [1]

My current GAs olfactory reference syndrome and leukoplakia need closure, unless another editor can be found to complete them. Apologies to LT and Ian Furst who have put effort into the review on Leukoplakia.

For your info, DangerousPanda, I was an experienced editor with over 12,000 edits, mainly to topics around oral medicine and oral pathology, and I was apparently one of the top 10 most active editors on medical pages in '13 ... but hey none of that matters. All that is important is that people like you their daily fix of belittling and bullying people who are trying to do the right thing. And, ofc you get to keep the obnoxious POV-pushing editors so good luck with that. Lesion 09:01, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that Lesion, it will be WP's loss. I just noticed the discussion at WP:ANI about Electronic cigarette and in my view it wasn't well-handled. From past involvement in that article, I think there has definitely been a behaviour problem there (which it seems, is continuing). I guess it's part of the Wikipedia editing experience to discover there are some things here which really suck and can't be fixed ... at least not in a timely fashion. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 09:11, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Am sorry to see you leave, Lesion. You have always been a reasonable and conscientious editor with a very down-to-earth attitude about editing, and I wish you all the best in your future, LT910001 (talk) 09:22, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Lesion, I'm really sorry you had this upsetting experience. I hope you take a very well earned wiki-break and come back when you feel ready and refreshed. Always feel free to join me in the mire of obscure agricultural villages of the subcontinent requiring copyediting. ;-) Take it easy, Myrtle G. Myrtlegroggins (talk) 09:41, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Two things: 1) my thoughts on Lesion's departure, and 2) would you want to be added to WP:MISS, User:Lesion? Jinkinson talk to me 13:53, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Lesion Your work has not gone unnoticed, and it would be a massive shame to see you go. I was near wiki-burnout in late 2005 and came close in 2008 after unpleasant interactions with even more unpleasant people. But in the end it's worth it. Don't bolt the door. Please. JFW | T@lk 14:50, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes much of Wikipedia sucks and we all unfortunately have to deal with those part from time to time. Yes one needs a very thick skin to edit in certain areas. Remember "Illegitimi non carborundum" and we are here for our readers. Hope you change your mind. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 15:13, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I saw the ANI discussion after it was closed. I don't think the request was clear enough for most of the people who usually hang out there, who seem to spend no more than ten seconds reviewing a situation on average. That forum isn't effective for open-ended requests for help. If you try to be fair and non-prejudicial by saying, "Here's this problem, what do you think?", it will likely fail while they engage in a game of hot potato. If you say, "I request a topic ban", you still might get no help, but at least they won't tell you that RSN is a good forum for dealing with WP:CPUSHing.

Would someone else like to take over this? An RFC/U would not be an unreasonable way to collect information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

• I too am displeased that Lesion says they're retiring. Of course, I cannot and will not shoulder all of the blame. As I have already said elsewhere, yes, I stooped to sarcasm ... unfortunately, I did that after the conversation had already gone south. I should not have been tempted to do that. Lesion's edits have been able to move the project forward. The sole error I find was the way they approached the ANI filing, and then the post-closing - it's probably a good thing that Lesion does NOT have extensive experience at ANI, and that's a credit to them - those who spend a lot of time a ANI are jaded :-) . It's unfortunate that the way the ANI was filed/introduced left no other option but to close it with no action - and by the way, it wasn't me who closed it. Lesion, I apologize rarely, but I do apologize that my attempted humour led to sarcasm that was unfortunately taken the wrong way. It is also my sincere hope that you return to the work you've been doing. If you have questions on how to appropriately file the concerns, please contact me - although I see some of your wise colleagues are already taking up the mantle. Best,  the panda  ₯’ 19:05, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
• Lesion Thanks for everything you have done and contributed. I listed WikiProject Medicine at the Wikipedia:List of cabals so that people in the future can know that they can come to this forum and ask for more opinions about the reliability of sources. This board is almost always of one mind about acceptable medical sources and anyone coming here asking for comments about a source ought to get predictable comments. I would like to think that people like Lesion can depend on this board providing people to give comments request, and I hope that there was not a problem in help being requested and this board failing to provide it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:01, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

As an update, @Lesion:, NuclearWarfare has blocked the editor FergusM1970. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:26, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Lesion, it's sad to see you leaving, since I regard you as a very supportive coeditor. I've once taken what was meant to be a permanent leave, but I gradually returned to editing, and I hope you will too. Mikael Häggström (talk) 14:58, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

@Lesion: Really sorry to see you go Lesion; you've definitely contributed a lot to WP and WP:MED in particular. I just wanted to say thanks for all your efforts in editing and improving wikipedia; you've been a valuable asset to the project and will be missed. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 05:22, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Re: Anatomy article

I deleted some un-referenced text from the article partly because it seemed out of context to me. My point of view is that the unsourced text blurred the study of anatomy and the study of pathology into just the study of anatomy. The editor who is also the GA reviewer for this article has started a discussion at Talk:Anatomy#Preservation_of_content, and I would welcome more opinions over there. Snowman (talk) 12:09, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

The GA reviewer has put the un-sourced text back. I have copied this to the WP Anatomy talk page, where it might be more relevant. Snowman (talk) 09:43, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/dcGO

Dear medical experts: Once again, here is an old Afc submission that will soon be deleted as a stale draft. Should this page be kept and improved instead? —Anne Delong (talk) 14:15, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Anne Delong The problem was that the article creator was making promotional claims not backed by citations. After I removed those claims there remained other information about the article's subject backed to scholarly publications. I moved the article to mainspace upon verifying them. Thanks for bring this article here - I do think it should be kept. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:57, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I have not heard of this before. The article needs improvements. dcGo itself appears to be well organized and useful, so I would think that it is notable. Snowman (talk) 16:23, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Opinion about abscesses and MRSA

Hello. Could I have an opinion at Talk:Abscess#When_to_use_antibiotics_with_an_abscess_and_MRSA? Lesion used to hang out there and is missed. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:42, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:46, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Medical articles and jargon

Moved from Wikipedia:OTRS noticeboard

I'm getting to the point where I hesitate to look up medical information on Wikipedia because nearly all the articles are too technical and seem geared to medical professionals and students rather than the average Wikipedia user. Is this the kind of thing that can be reviewed and changed by some kind of Wikipedia board or science group? Thank you very much. Rissa, copy editor 01:26, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Wrond desk for this query - try Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. Nthep (talk) 08:49, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Risssa, I agree with you, and so do a lot of us here. It's difficult, because the people who understand the material best are kind of used to all these technical terms and don't realize how difficult it can get for other people. We also have people who want to use medical jargon because it's more accurate (sometimes it is, other times, it's just showing off). The goal is to WP:Make technical articles accessible, although sometimes it's extremely difficult to write entire articles in plain English.

I'd consider it a favor if you posted here whenever you found an impenetrable section or paragraph in an article. Just give us a link to the article, paste the most important parts to fix here, and tell us that you can't understand it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:14, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I would rather say that lack of additional explanations is the real issue. There are many things that are wrongly presumed to be quite obvious. Well, they are actually, but not for regular readers. --Winter^eu (user talk) 00:50, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I would like to see more articles with both the precise technical language, where this is not easily simplified, and more generally accessible language, especially in the lead, where I think the problems are often most prominent. This can be achieved in normal prose, but it might be good to have a convention where we have a box in the lead with an accessible summary, rather like the "in a nutshell" boxes for guidelines, but rather longer and perhaps not at the top. For example, many articles on drugs, which start out very technical, could benefit from this approach. Johnbod (talk) 01:03, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea, but a bit tricky. The encyclopedic character of the article could be altered. --Winter^eu (user talk) 12:03, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Category:Glossaries of medical terms might be helpful in this matter.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:28, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with WhatamIdoing and Johnbod. Please feel free to post links to the awkward sections here, and one of us will attempt to simplify it. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:28, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Respiratory Rate Ranges

The "normal" range of respiratory rates on the respiratory rate article are seriously incorrect. An adult with a respiratory rate of 18-22 is not normal, they are in respiratory distress. The normal rate of respiration is 14/minute. I am studying for my neurology exam right now so I don't have the time to dig up all the sources or learn how to write a wikipedia article so if someone else could take point on this I would appreciate it. I thought I would at least do my part and bring it to everyone's attention.

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/healthlibrary/conditions/cardiovascular_diseases/vital_signs_body_temperature_pulse_rate_respiration_rate_blood_pressure_85,P00866/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.40.155.159 (talk) 00:30, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

You are right. The article "Respiratory rate" is incorrect. Once I am back with my books, I shall find a suitable reference and fix the article. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:35, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I have corrected the article and added a reference to Ganong. Axl ¤ [Talk] 22:15, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Salbutamol inhalers

After the discussions on patents yesterday, I found this article on Albuterol as well as this one in the New York Times. According to the article, the makers heavily lobbied the US government to have CFC based inhalers banned which resulted in a second patent and delays in generics. It's an interesting saga, but I'm not sure if a politcal fight is appropriate for the article. Thoughts? Ian Furst (talk) 10:04, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Of course it is. Just tread gently, so that you are being very careful to represent what the sources say, focusing on the bare facts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:16, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

The transition away from CFCs in inhalers is covered at Inhaler#Propellants and Metered-dose inhaler#Propellants; those may be better target articles. I second the good advice from WhatamIdoing. --Mark viking (talk) 20:36, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Nebulizer and Montreal protocol may also be of (limited) relevance. Please use care to ensure that if primary and viewpoint sources are used, statements are attributed accordingly and to avoid wp:COATRACKing. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:41, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Mark viking, I didn't see it's coverage. I'll add in the new references, to Inhaler#Propellants as well as the lobby efforts quoted in the NYT. Ian Furst (talk) 00:01, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

This is an issue specific to the USA (and possibly some other countries?). In the UK, generic salbutamol MDIs are typically prescribed and used. Please try to avoid a US-centric rant. If this information is to be included in the article (and I think that a brief mention is appropriate), it should be kept brief—perhaps no more than two sentences. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:47, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

One of the article mentions "generic Augmentin" and "generic Concerta" whatever that means. As far as I am aware, a ban on CFCs in inhalers started a few years ago (? world wide ban). The changeover to non CFC's has also happened in the UK. I would try to correlate what the newspapers say with other articles, before adding anything to the Wiki. I would not use the newspapers as sources for the Wiki. Apparently the use of generics is increasing in USA; see 2011 Health Care Costs. A generic salbutamol 200 dose inhaler costs £1.50 to the NHS in the UK (there is also a dispensing charge). Snowman (talk) 22:15, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Augmentin is a proprietary preparation of co-amoxiclav, made by GlaxoSmithKline. I am not familiar with Concerta but it is a proprietary preparation of methylphenidate made by Jannsen Pharmaceuticals (owned by Johnson & Johnson). "Generic Augmentin" is somewhat loose terminology—it really means "generic co-amoxiclav" as opposed to "proprietary Augmentin". Axl ¤ [Talk] 22:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I did not write my previous comment very clearly. The sloppy language in the newspaper articles does not inspire me with confidence and that is why I would suggest that the newspaper articles should not used as sources on the Wiki. I would not have been irritated by something like "the generic equivalent of Augmentin". Snowman (talk) 22:57, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

The original point I was trying to make, stemmed from our discussion the previous day related to patents on WHO Essential drugs (the first discussion was wrt Cephalexin). What I found interesting wasn't the banning of CFC inhalers, but the use (manipulation?) of that ban to gain a patent extension. The New York Times piece is investigative journalism (I'm not sure that the motherjones piece has any true investigation or is a repeat of the other sources) and I'm not sure other sources will seek out the same information. Ian Furst (talk) 16:52, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

If the drug companies change the delivery system to CFC free, then they patent it. What is wrong with that? The problem seems to be that branded drugs are more expensive in the USA. Presumably, the license of salbutamol was unaffected. Can they prescribe generic dry powder salbutamol devices in the USA? Snowman (talk) 19:58, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Branded drugs are more expensive everywhere—not just in the USA. That's how the pharma companies make money. I don't think that there is any "generic dry powder device" at all. Axl ¤ [Talk] 21:03, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I see; the dry power salbutamol devices are all branded, even though the salbutamol license has expired. Branded drugs can be different prices in different prices in the world. If the prices were they same, then there would not be any parallel importing. Snowman (talk) 21:26, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, your implication was "Branded drugs are more expensive in the USA than they are elsewhere in the world", not "In the USA, branded drugs are more expensive than non-branded drugs". :-) Axl ¤ [Talk] 08:15, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

That is one thing that the newspaper implies. Snowman (talk) 12:32, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Comment for WikiProject Medicine

Hello, I have some concerns about the accuracy and neutrality of two articles perhaps of interest to this WikiProject: Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Polychlorinated biphenyl. I am in a conflict of interest, I am involved with a prominent lawsuit; but my concerns about the article relate to the Wikipedia contributions of another editor in a COI. Could more experienced Wikipedians please look at the recent discussions on the two talk pages, and the edit histories, and see if it is possible to establish a more neutral, and factually informative, version of the relevant sections? Thank you, -Kdelay13 (talk) 22:43, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

There are likely to be authoritative and erudite books or articles on these topics. Please note that the disclaimer at the bottom of every Wiki article. Not referring to your case nor your work, but as a general rule of thumb, I would guess that a lawyer could get laughed at if he or she used the Wiki as an accurate source of scientific information in a legal document. Snowman (talk) 10:01, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Re-think - remark withdrawn by strike out. Snowman (talk) 17:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

I am not sure what you are up to. Please make it clearer what you are requesting. This does not like a simple request for an article or articles to be improved. Snowman (talk) 17:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

@Snowmanradio: Thank you for taking a look. Here's the basic situation; you can get more detail from the specific comments on both articles' talk pages and edit histories.

• There is currently a major lawsuit underway; among the things that will be determined in the case is whether, legally speaking, there is a causal link between PCBs and non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.
• Because of my connection to the plaintiffs, I have a conflict of interest in this case; but so does another user, Glenn Young, who previously edited both articles.
• I initially tried to add information, cited to research, to the article; but I have been informed that due to my COI it is better for me to take a more hands-off approach.
• There is evidence for both sides: some suggests there is a causal connection, other evidence denies it. But there are significant differences in the methodology.

As I see it, there are two general approaches Wikipedia could take that would be OK. Either:

• Wikipedia makes it clear that there is not 100% consensus in the scientific community about whether or not there is a causal connection between PCBs and nHL; or
• Wikipedians do a very careful review of the scientific literature in order to determine accurately what the consensus of the scientific community is, and report it accurately and with very strong citations.

The current status of the articles do suggest to the reader that there is not a causal connection; but that conclusion does not appear to have been reached through a thorough consideration of the existing scientific literature. -Kdelay13 (talk) 00:59, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Update: I've looked at the recent reviews on the subject. There were four, three of which are directly relevant. They're listed at the talk page, and I'd be happy to have other eyes there, but basically all four reviews support (to varying degrees) a causal link. The "evidence for both sides" means that there are primary sources that come to both conclusions. AFAICT, there are no secondary sources that conclude against a link. I think it should just be listed with the other causes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:18, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/APS ACTION

Dear medical experts: Is this old Afc submission about a notable topic? It'll be deleted soon unless someone takes an interest in it. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:59, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Anne Delong Thanks for bringing this here. I reviewed it and tagged it for deletion. This organization is in the scope of this WikiProject, so thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:13, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Great. One more off the list. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:19, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Would it be better if there had been more time for other people to have look at the article before it is deleted? Snowman (talk) 21:35, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 25/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Temporary Manic Displacement Disorder. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:35, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Sounds a bit too new. I would say delete it. Best to get more opinions. Snowman (talk) 21:39, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Society and Medicine Categorization

HasteurBot has finished a trial run through tagging WikiProject Medicine talk pages with the "Society and Medicine task force" sub parameter. The bot does not make judgments on importance. Please review Category:Unknown-importance society and medicine articles to assign an appropriate society task force importance parameter. Thank you. Hasteur (talk) 00:16, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians

Dear medical experts: This article about a medical society has no references and so will shortly be deleted as a stale draft. I am posting it here on the off-chance than someone from this project will take an interest in it and fix it up. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:16, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Shouldn't take much - this, this and this might help. Johnbod (talk) 15:54, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I've added them to a further reading section. Anne, I think that article is now more than adequate for article space. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:15, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I have move the article to mainspace. I also removed the external links from the body of the article. It could use some inline citations and some categories. Thanks for your help. —Anne Delong (talk) 21:46, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Eating pulses might lower risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer or diabetes

Some dispute about whether Wikipedia should be saying this at Pulse (legume). More eyes would be welcome. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 17:37, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes agree some issues with sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 19:50, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Three new accounts

Are trying to add material to hypercholesterolemia with very poor refs. Query need for protection. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:47, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Urine therapy and Urophagia

Yesterday I reverted User:Amruth M D who added, amongst other material that "This age old natural therapy can prevent and cure cancer, AIDS, Renal failure, gall bladder stones, cerebral palsy" with some non-RS sources. Can someone here more familiar with the subject counsel him? He's replacing this material today. Dougweller (talk) 15:39, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Osteopathic manipulative medicine‎

• Osteopathic manipulative medicine‎ (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Some questions have come up about sourcing, and the presentation of sources' findings. Could use more eyes. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 18:38, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, more eyes would definitely be welcome. Thank you. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 18:55, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

We really need a few more eyes. The conversation is beginning to become circular and isn't really going anywhere. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 08:06, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Microbiota

The usage of Microbiota (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is under discussion, see talk:Microbiota ; as the term "microbiota" is used in medicine, the usage of the location "microbiota" may be of interest to you. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 03:50, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

World Cancer Report

Does anyone have a copy of this? [2] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:22, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Found one. All good. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:41, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Medical foundations?

Dear medical experts: Are medically-oriented foundations such as Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Binaytara Foundation withing the scope of thos project? Or is there a better place to discuss them? —Anne Delong (talk) 18:28, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, although most people aren't interested, so they're low priority. Except for hospitals, medical orgs are WPMED and WP:WikiProject Organizations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:11, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Anne Delong Please continue to post these. I try to comment on them and I did for the one you just posted. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:06, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Cannabinoid Receptors

Hello again, medical experts. This old draft will soon me deleted. Is there any information that should be moved to another article, such as Cannabinoid? —Anne Delong (talk) 20:28, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

The appropriate article would be Cannabinoid receptor, and it looks like the content from the AFC was already merged into that article with this edit. -- Ed (Edgar181) 20:33, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that. Since it was the same editor who made the draft who moved the information, the draft can be discarded. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:32, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 29/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/EMA401. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 12:45, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Royal Society journals - subscription offer for one year

I'm delighted to say that the Royal Society, the UK’s National Academy for science, is offering 24 Wikipedians free access for one year to its prestigious range of scientific journals. Please note that much of the content of these journals is already freely available online, the details varying slightly between the journals – see the Royal Society Publishing webpages. For the purposes of this offer the Royal Society's journals are divided into 3 groups: Biological sciences, Physical sciences and history of science. For full details and signing-up, please see the applications page. Initial applications will close on 25 May 2014, but later applications will go on the waiting list.

Content mostly general science, and mostly primary, but some review articles. This is a recent example, and this the rather erratic "subject collection" for "health and disease and epidemiology". Wiki at Royal Society John (talk) 12:55, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Tools for spying on your Wiki friends

At the WP:PUMP right now there is an RfC a discussion about a tool for seeing what other Wikipedians do. This is a legacy project called the User Analysis Tool, currently providing identical data to X!'s Edit Counter which is deprecated but which some of you may remember. The RfC is about privacy concerns for looking at other Wikipedians, and I think it is an interesting discussion. The tool does not actually get secret data, but it presents public data in an accessible way that creeps some people out.

I am bringing this up here because unrelated to this RfC, some researchers at the University of Washington have a competing tool in development and in their prototype they scraped WikiProject Medicine data and one of their sample exercises is to go to WikiProject Medicine and find a collaborator. I have no affiliation with this group at this time but after doing their study I am impressed, and I also like that they used this WikiProject as a testing ground. I like people doing research about health information on Wikipedia.

Anyone may read about their research at meta:Research:Finding a Collaborator. They are recruiting more study participants right now. To participate in the study, one needs to meet with them on Google Plus and take a one-hour survey and online exercise. Results of the study will be used to make tools which look users' histories for the purpose of fostering community. Message Wkmaster if you are interested and wish to participate. I participated and found what they are doing to be insightful and an option for development of tools similar to the one in the RfC. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:21, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

RFC Notification

There is an RFC at Talk:Cannabis (drug) that may be of interest to some members of this Wikiproject. Direct link here. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 15:31, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

anyone to offer some help to an editor on medical subjects

I came across some edits made by an editor at Leptin who has really been making a lot of efforts to improve this article. Some warnings were however added highlighted concerns with sourcing of the medical research (see for example diff), so I suggested that this wasn't the right way to go about it - see diff. I was hoping that someone with a lot of experience in this area might be able to offer better advice and guidance than me how to go about solving those sorts of medical writing issues. --_nonsense ferret 20:05, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

MEDMOS

Lactulose was organized per WP:MEDMOS. A user is trying to change it to a very different format. Is not engaging on the talk page. Thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 03:25, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that the difference (mainly whether the mechanism of action, which differs for each use, should be a subsection of each medical use, or separately at the end) is worth fighting over. MEDMOS was designed for a situation in which the mode of action was the same for all indications, and that's not true here. Either is valid.

I also wonder whether, in the presence of an edit war between an admin and a logged-out editor, semi-protecting the page is a violation of the protection policies. I believe that there at least used to be a rule that one didn't disadvantage IPs by prohibiting them from editing, but permitting the other person in the edit war to keep editing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:25, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe they will than join in a discussion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 15:49, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Nootropic - the opposite of WP:MEDRS

So, I started editing (mass-deleting text, sparing what I could, or replacing bad refs with reviews) this article... it was more or less a paragon of what MEDRS says not to do. IMO, it's now it's decent above Nootropic#Miscellaneous, mixed good/bad in Nootropic#Miscellaneous†, and abhorrently bad in every section below it. There's still a fair amount of redundancy that has yet to be deleted as well.
Given that this article is still somewhat of a WP:MED/WP:PHARM travesty, anyone want to lend me a hand? ;)

†Some have decent review refs. For the ones that don't, I thought I might be able to adequately ref them over the next week or so.
Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 03:47, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Edit: Just in case it's not apparent what the problem is, the drugs section (most of the page) is basically a bunch of drug category subsections, sometimes with overly general or uncited claims regarding cognitive effects, followed by a list of related drugs. The claims about the drugs in those sections either have no ref, a primary/animal ref, or a ref on general pharmacodynamics instead of their effects on cognition (i.e., they say something along the lines of: "XYZ is a ABC agonist" as opposed to "ABC agonists like XYZ improve working memory"). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 05:12, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Additional problem: the page's nav template - {{Antihyperkinetics}} - more or less suggests that everything on there that isn't a psychostimulant (excluding clonidine/guanfacine which are nonstimulant ADHD drugs) has a cognition-enhancing drug effect. Based upon the template heading, it should just reflect the much smaller group of N06B ATC-coded drugs. Currently:155 drugs - should only have 36 listed.

Any objections to me cutting the template to a quarter of its size? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 05:53, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

 Fixed the template above Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained)

I just noticed that {{nootropics}} is completely off as well... ATC code N06 is the "Psychoanaleptics" group - we're calling it "Nootropics." The template doesn't look at all like the ATC classification for N06. Template:Nootropics Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 06:17, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes I waded into this article a few years ago. May take another look. Trim poor quality sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 15:51, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Poor paper [3] on Wikipedia

There are some serious issues with this paper:

1. Why did they not check if the references provided for the statements in question supported the statements in question?
2. Up-to-date is not exactly a high quality source. I have found errors in it that when brought to their attention they did not seem very interested in fixing them. (The FDA did eventually pull the treatment in question)
3. They did not mention any specific examples of these so called "errors" so that the reader of their paper could decide themselves. Nothing here we can use to improve Wikipedia.
4. What they showed is that "peer reviewed" literature makes contrary claims. But they missed stating this actual conclusion. This is why we at Wikipedia try to use meta analysis.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 16:06, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Erm...

Although 9 of 10 articles demonstrated discordance between Wikipedia articles and the peer-reviewed sources, the article on concussions did not. This finding may have occurred because Wikipedia has a number of different contributors to each article and the contributors to this particular article were more expert. [wikilinked for emphasis]

The following paragraph should be more like "the present study had 5 6 main limitations... Sixth, we used an arbitrary metric to select ten articles – a very small fraction of the total number of medical articles on Wikipedia – from which we used a stupid inductive fallacy to make this point. Because, after all, if we used the next ten people we saw today to draw up demographics about the US or world population, that would clearly be representative as well. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 17:46, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Ironic that an investigation on the accuracy of Wikipedia is poorly designed however,

1. The intent is to compare the accuracy of key articles on Wikipedia to a gold standard. The gold standard, should be the sum of knowledge on a topic as defined by experts. Instead, the gold standard was "uptodate", or other references as decided and interpreted by internal medicine residents.
2. There is no account made for the internal variation seen in differences seen within "peer-reviewed" literature. E.g., if the compared uptodate to pubmed (both of which could be used as a gold standard) would the same differences exist?

One could easily interpret the results that Wikipedia is the gold standard and UptoDate has many errors (and the conclusion would be equally valid).

1. It would be interesting to see the claims they identified. Maybe we have inaccuracies that need to be fixed.

Ian Furst (talk) 19:17, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Ironic that ... ← What do you expect from a fringe journal? ;-) Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 19:29, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Have requested further details from the author. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 19:44, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

It's interesting to compare that paper to "Quality of information sources about mental disorders: a comparison of Wikipedia with centrally controlled web and printed sources" (PMID 22166182). That paper found Wikipedia was the most accurate among 10 sources examined in each of two subject areas. The other sources included everything from Britannica to WebMD, the NIMH website, Mayo Clinic, even a major psychiatry textbook. The authors of that study didn't even seem surprised by the results, writing "These findings largely parallel those of other recent studies of the quality of health information on Wikipedia", and citing eight other studies. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 04:46, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Post-publication peer review

← I don't doubt that we need to improve the accuracy of our medical articles, but I agree with James that this particular study is utterly meaningless and isn't worth the electrons it's printed on. Since "post-publication peer review" (aka "publish crappy studies and let the bloggers sort it out") is all the rage these days, here's mine:

• The reviewers chosen to adjudicate the correctness of the articles were interns and residents. This is a very curious decision, since house staff are typically at the very beginning of the learning curve when it comes to utilizing and interpreting the peer-reviewed medical literature. Specifically, the medical literature is permeated by conflicting evidence, and weighting and interpreting this evidence is a challenge even for physicians who have years of experience with it and use it every day, much less beginning house staff.
• Probably as a consequence of using under-qualified "judges", the manuscript states that reviewers were instructed to use UpToDate as a surrogate for actually reviewing the medical literature. Now, every physician I know loves UpToDate. It's great. But UpToDate is a shortcut. It's something you do when you don't have time to personally review the literature. I don't think that even the authors of UpToDate would claim that it's a substitute for a personal review of the medical literature in a situation like this.
• The level of agreement between the two reviewers is horrendous. That is, two reviewers applying the same set of criteria come to different conclusions much of the time. Hell, they often didn't even come close to agreeing on how many assertions each article contained, much less whether those assertions are correct. The implication is that the metric being used here is completely unreliable and unreproducible. If I felt ambitious, I'd try to calculate a kappa statistic (something the authors should have done, and the peer reviewers should have insisted upon), but I'm sure it would be in the coin-flip range. If the only measurable data item in your manuscript is based on a completely unreliable test with zero reproducibility, then your results are meaningless and it's unclear to me why this paper ever saw the light of day.
• The way the data are presented (in the one table that actually contains data) is extremely hard to parse. I've looked at it for awhile and I'm still not quite clear what the authors are trying to demonstrate—which is the mark of a poorly constructed table.
• There is really no excuse for not presenting the raw data, at least in some form, either in the article or in supplementary materials. (I mean, it's not like the manuscript is exactly overflowing with data, so there's room). On a basic level, we can't correct errors if they're not identified. On the level of data integrity, it's impossible to verify what the reviewers considered an "assertion", much less an accurate or inaccurate assertion, which makes it impossible for the reader to interpret the data meaningfully.

I'm actually considering whether to write to the corresponding author and ask for a copy of the raw dataset. Partly because I'm intrigued, partly because I want to calculate an actual kappa statistic to confirm my impression of the lack of inter-observer agreement, and partly because I'd like to see if there are, in fact, significant errors in our coverage which need to be corrected. MastCell ^Talk 20:13, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, go for it - you have my moral support on this one. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:36, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Correction: I think I finally understand Table 3. And because of the methodology of the paper, it will be impossible to calculate a kappa statistic, even with the raw data. Each reviewer was allowed to come up with their own set of "assertions" and then test them, so there are actually two levels of unreproducibility in the study design. A marginally better design would have been to extract a set of assertions from each article, and then assign the two reviewers to independently rate the correctness of each assertion. That approach would allow a statistical assessment of the reliability and reproducibility of the authors' claims. As is, I don't know how you can calculate a kappa or any other measure of inter-rater reliability when the raters don't even agree on what they're rating. Maybe someone with greater statistical know-how could devise an approach, but I think this study design was poorly thought out to the extent that it defies standard, straightforward statistical analysis. MastCell ^Talk 20:38, 30 April 2014 (UTC)