User talk:Davidruben

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Welcome!

Hello, Davidruben, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --Lst 27 00:46, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hey doc!

Hi Davidruben, you may be interested in joining WikiProject "Clinical medicine", the Wikipedia hangout for docs. JFW | T@lk 07:54, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Unblocked IP address

Hi Davidruben,

I unblocked the block that is keeping you from accessing Wikipedia. Feel free to leave another note on my talk page if you still can't connect to Wikipedia via AOL. Be advised that this may happen again if the vandal "Erwin Rommel" starts vandalizing again. There is no good way to block troublesome AOL users without affecting innocent users. Sorry for any inconvenience. Bumm13 18:38, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

MGUS

You are right that "unclear" is not commonly used, so I've changed it. According to PubMed, "undetermined" is definitely the most commonly used form. My source for the 2-3% annual conversion rate is every UK haematologist I've spoken to so far, but Kyle & Rajkumar (PMID 10626144) have a more conservative estimate, so I'll rely on that.

PS Where are you based? I'm an SHO in London. JFW | T@lk 3 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)

Enjoy your holiday. JFW | T@lk 4 July 2005 06:33 (UTC)

Nephrotoxicity

If the table is from the RCP Edinburg's article, then the reference should be sufficient. Or do you have a different source? I reckon there will be further additions...

I note you've been using the ß for β. How do you generate this? I tend to use &beta ; to avoid coding problems. I also think the ß is a German consonant... JFW | T@lk 19:50, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pharyngitis

A very good article! Very much aimed with the reader in mind, which is something I sometimes still find hard to do. I made some changes, but your content and its world-class references stand. I may reformat the references and add a PMID to facilitate Medline searching. JFW | T@lk 20:38, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

ECPs

Thanks for the kudos. Its all of course a work in progress, so please be bold in making any corrections. You are rather keen to note the estrogen/progestin issue with Preven, but Im not quite sure how to handle it, as the source literature (hidden in article - click "edit" to see) wasnt clear. Is it both, or is the progestin ratio based on some other daily dose figure? Im about done for today --at least until next time ;) Sinreg, St|eve 19:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'll get back to it later. FYI, theres been a related overview discussion on Wikien - the first thread being mine here. Discussion has "forked" a couple times - a date or thread search will show others. Though its probably a bit too political,its actually dealing with NPOV policy rel. terms, and how to treat the basic concepts most fairly. This is all in the context of wider related interest due to the impending US Supreme Court nomination, prospects of changes to Roe etc - various articles are getting flashlights on them. Pregnancy, etc. It would be nice, at some point, to have a UK Md take on it, just to offset WP:BIAS. Sinreg, -St|eve 21:32, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Great. There was certainly a bit of ambiguity there that needed some detail. It was rather strange to find zero links between the ECP article and chemical abortion --certainly theres more than enough conceptual overlap to require any differences to be explained. Note, if MAP is out of style in medical terms, we should probably move the article to EC. Also, should start adding basic links to template:abortion. Ive been working on pregnancy which will also need a template:pregnancy. These templates serve to map the general branches of a larger topic in a type of heirarchy --while the category footers are brilliant, they dont serve the same role, and arent prominent enough to be useful while reading. Sinreg, St|eve 15:38, 1 August 2005 (UTC) P.S. re. Anon sig: even when no logged in, signing "User:Davidruben" is a good idea --particularly on longer article discussions, where people can get confused. :)[reply]

Is the term "late contraception" used? I think its a bit more straightforward than "emergency contraception." -St|eve 15:40, 1 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OK. "Late contraception" seems rather proper to me (a simplicist), but emergency contraception is fine. "Abortifants" is POV. I agree that saying x is y is POV, but likewise there still needs to be some clearer explanation of the differences, in dealing with the pro-life claim of conception, as well as any outstanding issues that the drug works post-implantation. That's more what Im concerned about covering, though chemical abortion makes it clear that the drugs used are quite different. In any case theres plenty of work to do all around. Move?: No there is no consensus required for moves, unless its a rather hot topic with lots of editing. You and I constitute a consensus here. ;) Sig: Yeah, Ive also noticed WP logs me out rather quickly sometimes. What I do is use the preview button, which also lets me know if someone else has edited the page or section since I have been working on it. Some pages change too quickly. Sinreg, St|eve 00:50, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

SP: I noted that you spelled ECs with a cap Contraception. Proper form is lowercase unless its a proper name - for example, I just moved Yuzpe Regimen to Yuzpe regimen. -St|eve

EC

There are two types of IUD's: one type contains the hormone progestin and is only effective for 5 years- the second type contains copper and is effective for up to 12 years. Here's the source: http://plannedparenthood.com/pp2/portal/files/portal/medicalinfo/birthcontrol/pub-contraception-iud.xml Maybe we should differentiate between the two countries? The official website for Paraguard says 10 years (http://www.fei-womenshealth.com/about-paragard.html), but they always shorten "recommended use" for two reasons- sales and liability issues. Lepidoptera 23:57, 2 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Miscarriage

The truth is, my clinical experience with this problem is really quite thin. My main research interest is the interplay with thrombophilia and recurrent abortion. Your numbers are probably better than mine, and your English is undoubtedly of a higher standard :-). PS I fixed two red links on your userpage. JFW | T@lk 21:44, 6 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Medicine Collaboration of the Week

Hi! You showed support for Pneumonia, this week's Medicine Collaboration of the Week. You are invited to help improve it! — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:52, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Constipation

Hi DR. Constipation has been an annoyance ever since I started working on Wikipedia. Tonight I tidied up the **** mess in one fell swoop diff. Could you glance it over and see if I've forgotten anything? JFW | T@lk 21:54, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Glad you did that. I mentioned a whole host of things in the causes section but sorta left them out in the diagnosis section. Indeed, the cancer lump bit should be buried as deep as possible to stop people from panicking.

Strange that softeners are underused. In my previous SHO post (oncology) I achieved very satisfactory results with sodium docusate! But then we were throwing around macrogol liberally... JFW | T@lk 22:57, 10 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry... used Wikipedia (laxative) as a source. Never do that. Indeed the only people I've had on liquid paraffin were those with intermittent bowel obstruction. Macrogol is fairly powerful, but I reckon it's gentler than lactulose. JFW | T@lk 22:50, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pneumonia

Hi. I cleaned up your edits to make them more general and less UK-centric. I suspect it's not just in the UK that GPs have problems getting X-ray reports, though the UK probably has many other eccentricities in its health system. Alex.tan 06:22, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Alex.tan for your edits. David Ruben 19:40, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Aptness

does jar, doesn't it? I only put it in because appropriateness jarred even more. I couldn't think of another word that might fit, and the thesauri were of no help. If you'd really prefer another word, David, maybe restructuring the sentence may help.—Encephalon | ^ζ 23:36:33, 2005-08-18 (UTC)

Suitability?—Encephalon | ^ζ 23:38:23, 2005-08-18 (UTC)

suitability is better. A word reorder would be 'sputum cultures are usually used only to retrospectively confirm the infection's sensitivity to the antibiotic already started.' as it focuses on the fact that treatment is about targeting an infection and gets the word 'sensitivity' that of course all lab reports list suitable antibiotics under. (being more precise and using 'bacteria' rather than 'infection' scans poorly) David Ruben 23:48, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- Done.—Encephalon | ^ζ 23:53:44, 2005-08-18 (UTC)
- Much easier to jointly edit sections like this. I'm tempted add 'Collaboration request' on the Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Clinical_medicine, except all our lists of articles just starting on (and to be left alone by others) and completed and for review just vanished from page... ah, someones archived it all - yet this is active notices to the rest of the wo:Clinical-Medicine community. Hmmm this needs correcing...(give me a moment) David Ruben 00:13, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Rheumatoid arthritis on WP:MCOTW

Hi! You showed support for Rheumatoid arthritis, this week's Medicine Collaboration of the Week. You are invited to help improve it! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:34, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

Talk:Prescription drug

Hey David Ruben. Thanks for making those changes to the Prescription drug article, but I think you are confused. Actually an anonymous user at 193.41.37.3 made those comments but he/she put them in the actual article [1] so I moved them into the talk page where they belong. But seriously, thanks again for making the edits, which I guess I should've done in the first place. On a completely different topic: Any hope of getting a peer-review for Health issues and the effects of cannabis (the last time we spoke). =] Peace man. --Howrealisreal 17:27, 24 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization

Sorry for not knowing what low-level category each article should belong to; it is definitely not my forte to know the exact category. Of course I am not being lazy; as I continue working in parasitology my work should improve. Thank you for helping. As far as the Theodor Bilharz Institute is concerned, I think I and my stub may be falling prey to idealism insofar as I am hoping that someone who knows a little more about the article subject may come along and expand the article. Even though parasitology is tremendously underepresented vis a vis its public health impact, I am perhaps being too optimistic about this and other articles and their development in the Wiki environment. I am grateful just to be able to contribute these original stubs. --McDogm 05:43, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

PS I will go to the Bilharz Institute site tomorrow and write a decent stub or hopefully an article. Thanks for commenting. --McDogm 05:46, 25 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thanks for your letter. You know, I struggle with the material because I need to learn it, to read it and also to write some, without being too intrusive. At Talk:Parasitology (or Talk:Parasite, I forget which), I wrote about something I actually know something about. It makes me look a lot smarter than the work I am doing learing the ropes and how to make tax boxes, etc. I plan to continue contributing to Wikipedia, and I will also spend time on Wikispecies. Since my study time goes to the material covered in the Talk:Parasitology article I spend less time in pure science than I would certainly like. Its the first article in that particular talk section. Thanks again for your letter. --McDogm 21:12, 27 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please take care

Heavens! What happened, David? I just assumed you'd gone on a break, as I seem to remember you telling us that was on the cards. The ICU. Goodness. Well, you're out of it now, that's what's important. Do take all the rest you need, and don't worry about WP. Or MCOTW. In fact, Seeker has declared something of a break on that. Please do take care, David, and let us know if there's anything you'd like us to do. You're in my thoughts. All the very best wishes—encephalon ὲγκέφαλον 00:29:52, 2005-09-13 (UTC)

Dr. Ruben, Encephalon just mentioned your recent hospitalization to me. I am glad that you are out of the hospital and appear to be on the road to recovery. We're glad to have you back! But don't feel obligated to spend too much time on Wikipedia: your health comes first! — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:38, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind messages, I'll email a more personal reply to Encephalon, Knowledge Seeker & Jfdwolff David Ruben 20:54, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

medical records

Thanks for completing the tagging. Though, if you wish to create a separate article for the administrative structure behind medical records, I think you should create a more specific title than "medical records".

lots of issues | leave me a message 12:06, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Paid Editing Project

Hi: My name is Tess and I work for a global independent research firm in New York. I am interested in hiring you for a Wikipedia editing project, based on your technology and medical experience and expertise. I attempted to email you through your user page. If you received it, please read it over and contact me with any questions. If you did not receive this email, please let me know and I would be more than happy to tell you more about this project. (You can call 512-651-1797 or email tfurman@glgroup.com). Thank you and I hope to hear from you soon! Tess - Gerson Lehrman Group 18:56, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Translation

Hallo David! I have translated my german article de:Neurofibromatose Typ 2 to an english version Neurofibromatosis Type 2. Would you please be so kind to help me with some advice for the improvement of the article. I wrote some other articles in the area of neurocutaneous diseases wich are lacking in the english wikipedia and wich can easily be translated if there is an interest. Greetings Andy.we 22:13, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

adding biomedical content to Wikipedia

Hello, Dr. Ruben. I totally agree with your comments on my talkpage. The Gerson Lehrman Group apparently has a roster of experts interested in contributing biomedicine-related content to Wikipedia but need assistance doing so, and I can certainly give them a helping hand. I don't mind typing, and it's an extra opportunity to read and learn. Getting paid is a pretty good "side effect". Maybe this will evolve into a job for me when I finish school ? :-) .... I have sent them my CV, as requested. I haven't heard from them since, so maybe I ain't good enough for them -- I am still a graduate student. .... As I've asked in the welcoming msg to Wikitess, I suspect they need a wiki website like Wikipedia, not necessarily Wikipedia. I'll ask this question again if they get back to me. -- PFHLai 02:13, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification

I’m sorry about the confusion I have created. Please excuse my lack of knowledge and inexperience. I became a Wikipedia member to try and connect with some of the most avid users who are also medical professionals. Gerson Lehrman Group is working within our servers and we are simply using Wiki technology. We will NOT be making entries on Wikipedia. I encourage you to visit our website: www.glgroup.com for more information regarding our line of business. If you are not interested in working on the Wiki project, perhaps you would be interested in joining our HealthCare Council, a network of medical professionals who engage in paid consulting projects. If you have further questions or comments, please email me at tfurman@glgroup.com. Thank you for your interest in GLG. We look forward to working with you. Tess - Gerson Lehrman Group 14:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Nephrotic Syndrome

thanks! feedback does make you feel what you're doing is worthwhile (esp considering there are all these websites for kidney patients)

also i have to stop getting carried away and write as if i am addressing medical residents/students...i still am not sure i have the right perspective for a lay reader, so i hope i can get some constructive criticism Hswapnil 13:00, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

IgA nephropathy

hi, could you take a look at this, i think the therapy part has become a bit confusing? Hswapnil 14:29, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pneumonia on WP:MCOTW

Hi! You showed support for Pneumonia, this week's Medicine Collaboration of the Week. You are invited to help improve it! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:00, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Emergency department

I wonder if you would consider supporting this article by voting for it at Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive to improve it towards feature article status. I hope to increase the profile of clinical medicine and related subjects on wikipeda. The current article is basic, in particular with regards to EDs around the world.--File Éireann 20:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Moisturiser

I am going to tidy up the moisturiser area that you previously edited. Comments on its talk page.Obina 23:24, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Medical Education in the United Kingdom

Hi David,

Thank you for your minor fix (States -> Kingdom) in the intro of this page. I seem to have made the error whilst busily forming up these new med educ overview pages the other day. I started these pages to try to consolidate info on med ed/training as such information was spread across a number of articles (and was often quite US-specific for that matter).

I see you're a UK based GP. I am not based in the UK so would appreciate any input you may have. I have read of some exciting changes happening to UK vocational training, and it would be good to have some information on this (there is already a sizeable article devoted to entry level training: Medical school (United Kingdom).

Cheers, --Daveb 04:43, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Howdy, I was wondering if you could help clarify something. I have been told that UK General medicine is analogous to US Internal medicine. Is that strictly accurate? I was under the impression that UK general medicine included some training in pediatrics and ob/gyn, thus being more like US family medicine. Thank you for your attention. --DocJohnny 10:06, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Medicine in the UK

Thank you for your response. The differences in the categorization of subspecialties between our two nations is fascinating. And the fact that the language is similar but not identical adds quite a bit of confusion. I would be grateful if I could prevail upon you to clarify a few points. We just use the same words in different ways. We hardly ever use the word "General Medicine" except to describe family medicine. When we discuss Medicine vs. Surgery, we use only the word medicine. And our hospital departments have both a broad "Medicine" department which would include Family practice, and "Internal Medicine" which exists under "Medicine".

In the US, we do not have the distinction between community physicians and hospital physicians that you seem to have in the UK. The distinctions are more often based on employment (private docs vs hospital employed docs). There are 3 major nonsurgical tracks in postgraduate training in the US: Family medicine (family practice), Internal medicine, and Pediatrics.

Family Practice is a 3 year program, there are no subspecialization options.
Internal medicine is a 3 year program with a wide variety of subspecialization options, most lasting another 2-3 years.
Pediatrics is a 3 year program with a similar menu of subspecialty tracks as IM.

Internal medicine specialists can practice in the office, in the hospital, or both. As can pediatricians and family practitioners, although FP docs have a higher proportion of office only practice. Also the term consultant is used differently over here, as is apparently the term physician. I think even more confusion will be forthcoming since we have started hospital only practices (hospitalists).

My questions are:

Is General Medicine (Internal Medicine) in the UK only hospital based?
Are there pediatricians? Are they hospital based or office based?
Are there pediatric subspecialty tracks?
Are there office based subspecialists? ie cardiologists, gastroenterologists, oncologists...

Thank you, --DocJohnny 05:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"unlike US where you seem to suggest a 3-way split of hospital doctors into Internal Medicine, Paediatrics & Surgery"

The split is internal medicine (usually just called medicine), pediatrics, and family practice. Some basic terminology differences exist. In the US, the following holds true:

Physician is interchangeable with doctor and applies to anyone with either the MD or DO degree in any specialty.
Consultant is a term describing a doctor's relationship with the patient and the doctor of record, not a specific title. It is usually used to distinguish between the patient's doctor of record during that particular admission and the other doctors on the case. A patient may be admitted under a general surgeon for cholecystitis and then develop pneumonia. The surgeon would be the attending, and he can consult an internist to manage the pneumonia, the internist would then be the consultant. Or the reverse can occur, a patient may be admitted with pneumonia under an internist who would be the attending. Then if the patient develops cholecystitis the internist can consult a surgeon who would then be the consultant.
The word Attending or Attending physician is probably equivalent to the UK term Consultant. The term Attending is used 2 ways. One is to distinguish between physicians who have completed their training and ones in residency (Attending vs. Resident). The other is as above, to denote the doctor of record who assumes primary responsibility for the patient during that particular admission (Attending vs. Consultant).
Our generalists (Family Medicine/Practice) can practice in the hospital if they wish to. Although, this usually only occurs in smaller hospitals where there is less of a subspecialty presence.
Limited scope primary care outpatient practices exist, i.e. pediatrics and internal medicine.

--DocJohnny 22:58, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Health Visitor and District Nurse

Thanks for writing. I've only worked in acute care and unfortunately I'm not very well informed on nursing roles in the community setting, but the equivalent of a District Nurse in the U.S. would be simply a "visiting nurse" or "home nurse". As we don't have anything like the NHS system here, these nurses work for any of a million different private agencies or local health departments. There should probably be a more general article on visiting nurses, with a description of how their names and roles vary in different countries - or else Home care should be expanded. I'm less clear on the nature of Health Visitors; do they practice in a hospital setting or in homes? ←Hob 17:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

David thanks for the invitatio to have a look at these topics. My experience is A&E but I will have a look & contribute if I can. I'm also in contact, by a variety of means, with some DN's & HVs & Practice Nurss etc who may be willing/able to contribute & have some strong views about CPD & regulation changes for these professions. My real area of expertise is i health informatics & I notice this is not listed in the medical topics/specialisms lists - do you think it should be? Rod 09:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

asthma

your 2nd explntn for the dx of mild azma in athletes is what i had in mind. i'll check my wording, and maybe add something about the abuse of azma meds, which may be another cause of increased "incidence" in athletes.Sfahey 14:47, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Epilepsy and Driving

Thanks for adding the references on the UK legal issues wrt driving. I was composing my own references additions to the article, did a "show changes" which listed just mine and then a minute later went to save it -- bang! You'd beaten me to it. I think your reference is the best as it is the official site. However, I couldn't find anything about responsibility (doctor/patient) and it does say "These guidelines are intended for use by doctors". So I put in the Epilepsy Action reference that I had prepared and shifted your reference a little. I hope you are happy with the combination. --Colin Harkness 19:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The extra DVLA information is good. Wrt the broken link – I'd lost the final "l" of "html" in the URL. I think the original page was more suited to the purpose than the one you substituted and had the title given in the reference link. So I've changed it back but with the fixed URL. I've also tidied then DVLA reference and used the full title as used in the PDF version of the web page. It is a shame the PDF has a date in it so it isn't really suitable for linking. If only they had called it "latest.pdf". --Colin Harkness 09:15, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Should you be awake

Doc, which timezone are you in? JFW | T@lk 01:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha. I had completed my on-call and was doing some watchlist work before dragging myself home. Nightowling all right :-). JFW | T@lk 14:10, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Electroconvulsive therapy

I don't disagree that I was being a tad overgenerous. I just did not want to get into a 1 man revert war with the anon. --John^DO|^{Speak your mind} I doubt it 00:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

References

Thanks for the kinds words. I am glad I had the time to look up those sources, and Uthbrian was a great help. And I agree, we will need to subject the rest of the article to the same vetting as the section by the anon. --John^DO|^{Speak your mind} I doubt it 06:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Your message to Thor (Counter Vandalism Unit)

Thanks for your message David, I will set round getting an administrator to intervene and suspend this user from the Wikipedia if possible. The 3RR looks to have been breached. I will edit this message as soon as I have anything further for you, and I thank you warmly for alerting me to this situation. Regards, Thor Malmjursson 03:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC) Talk to me[reply]

Thanks for being patient with me David, and apologies for keeping you waiting. I am going to revert the article one more time, and I have left a warning on the anon user's talk page - see here - This is going to be passed to the AIV team (Administrator Intervention) and I will request that the user is blocked for a period to prevent further edits and hopefully discourage them from doing this again. Your assistance has been most welcome. Please do not hesitate to contact me again if this persists. Thor Malmjursson 03:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC) Talk to me[reply]

You misstated the position of the NIMH Consensus conference. they did not state that there is "no credible evidence of harm." They found at least eight months permanent memory loss.Also, just because an agency or institution issues a report does not mean it's NPOV. Bricks and mortar don't write reports---people do! And the NIMH was completely stacked with promoters of ECT, including those with financial ties to the shock machine companies (Sackeim, Weiner). Were you at the conference, and were you involved in the planning of it? I was. There were approximately twelve proponents on the planning committee and only one critic was included at the last minute due to criticism from former patients.

Same goes for the SG---the vast majority of references are to only a couple of, once again, financially conflicted authors. There was quite a bit of international media on the bias of the SG report---if I knew how to link such things, I would link them to here. Once again, I was involved in the SG report for years.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.122.225.69 (talk • contribs)

References for medical articles

Thanks for inserting the reference for Impossible syndrome. Is there information or a guidebook anywhere that would help me understand how to locate the article and insert a reference to it? I found Wikipedia:Citing sources quite confusing. Perhaps it would help us all to have something about how to cite sources (and how to use PMID) on the Wikipedia:WikiProject Clinical medicine page. Inability to create proper references seems to be a common problem, unfortunately leading to many articles with no sources cited.... Thanks again! --Rewster 18:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

PubMed citation

I was recently asked if there was information or a guidebook anywhere that would help a user understand how to locate a reference article and insert the reference to it. I was going to direct the user to the discussion on your bookmarklet for the PubMed tool but Clinical Medicine's talk page was recently archived. Given that this is an ongoing tool to help with medical articles, I have copied and reorganised the details into the Project's front page under the section about references, here. I think any improvements to the explanation or the javascript should be as edits, rather than as a sequential series of entries seen in a talk page's discussion. David Ruben ^Talk 14:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for moving the details to a more permanent spot. I think the existing docs are pretty decent (they're a heck of a lot more informative than Wikipedia:Tools/Browser integration, which is where most of the more popular bookmarklets are listed), but I'll add more if anything comes to mind. Cheers, David Iberri (talk) 20:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tertiary_referral_hospital

This being America, there are actually three commonly used definitions for a tertiary referral hospital, which we tend to refer to as Tertiary Care Centers or some variation thereof. 1) A hospital with a (nearly) comprehensive services usually large and affiliated with a medical school. 2) A specialty hospital with tertiary consultants. For example: psychiatric hospitals, children's hospitals, cancer centers, transplant centers, etcetera. 3) A specific relationship with another hospital or region. A hospital regardless of size or services can be deemed a tertiary referral hospital if it serves as the recipient of transfers from another usually smaller hospital (the secondary) which serves as the transfer recipient of a third smallest hospital.

Usually the third definition coincides with one of the other two. --John^DO|^{Speak your mind} 14:39, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For example a tertiary care center for a more rural area is [[2]] which is a 350 bed hospital. While it offers fairly detailed services, it is by no means comprehensive in tertiary specialists. By the standards of NYC or Boston, it is a secondary care facility. --John^DO|^{Speak your mind} 21:15, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

For the nice meal. I see symptoms of Wikipedia insomnia. JFW | T@lk 08:59, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Epidemiologic vs epidemiological

Good question. However, things are a bit more complicated. I started out with a mixed version where both spellings occurred three times or so. Like you, I chose "epidemiological" as the better version. However, a quote and a Journal title both containing "epidemiologic" made me think again. So before saving it, I did some checks in PubMed and Google, also contrasting UK vs US English and came up with (1) both versions are ok as per spelling rules (2) "epidemiologic" is the preferred version. What convinced me was a search of the article titles in http://www.epidem.com (Joutnal listed in this article) that (similar to Google) showed a 2.5:1 ratio. Unlike Google, this reflects the preferred use among published scientists. Go figure... AvB ÷ talk 14:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Paracetamol

Very interesting points. I have wondered why there is no common slow-release form for so common a drug. The large size was just speculation from me, so no problem with removing it. The frequent dosage is disadvantage for an otherwise excellent drug, especially as paracetamol is often combined with other drugs using a different schedule. So I thought that it was worth mentioning, it has certainly sometimes affected me when deciding what drug to prescribe. Ultramarine 18:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

thanks

...Thimerosal_controversyMidgley 03:41, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

the motivation?

The motivating factor in Midgley getting a star was perhaps related to a certain anon on the Epidemiology and Autistic enterocolitis pages? Kd4ttc 04:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-vaccinationist pages

David,

Just to respond to some points you made and you are welcome to delete this after the communication has been effected, in case it is over long. The tone of dialogue immeasurably improves communication and you have made that effort, for which I am grateful, and to which I am responding. It was unfortunate and regrettable that the text was deleted, but I am not such an idiot to do such a thing intentionally and especially not in such highly charged circumstances.

There are misconceptions about 'anon' users. All users have user page/talk-pages. You will see I have both and WP is identical in all respects so far as I can know, save for the use of email and a couple of embellishments like creating pages.

As for WP posting edit warnings that has only happened to me about three time so far in all my editing and it only happened once on the anti-vax RfD page.

As for editing 4 times after CDN99 had pointed out the deletions, that is pretty easy to answer. You will notice that I even responded to that particular edit by CDN99. Had I realised what had happened and had it been intentional, anyone with half an ounce of sense would have quickly said "Hey guys, I made a mistake". As it was not intentional, I really did not take on board the significance and really only read the parts of the posting that I considered relevant to me after quickly scanning the text.

You will also note that five other editors after the deletion was pointed out made seven edits themselves.

As for never agreeing on vaccination, that is really not a problem. I have no issues with safe effective medical treatments and no issue in principle with vaccination. It is only what I have learnt about it since becoming aware there is a problem, that I know there is.

I am fully cognisant of risk/benefit equations and that is one of the aspects I have been careful to look into. I have looked into it in far greater detail than most and the research will be seeing the light of day in peer reviewed papers with respectable journals, having already trodden that ground.

I know people in your profession who are very uncomfortable with what is happening and the short and long term consequences. We are engaging in an experiment on our children and it started in the late 1960's and early 1970's with measles and rubella vaccines (ignoring the introduction of DPT many years earlier).

What is going on is a race. It is a race to eradicate diseases throughout the world with vaccines and take the collateral damage as a cost. Having looked at hard evidence of the kinds of collateral damage and seen how evidence is suppressed and that people cannot publish and folks in your profession do not report adverse events, I cannot reconcile the extent of the damage with the claimed benefits of the intervention. I have looked very closely at the disease stats and the benefits of the programmes and the risk benefit equation is really heavily going in the opposite direction to that people in your profession are told constantly. That is on top of exaggerated disease risk stats pumped out by officials responsible for promoting vaccination programmes - and I know the stats are, because I have the seen the data.

The foregoing paragraph is the kind view of what is going on and takes no account of the scale and extent of corruption in the pharmaceutical industry which has regrettably corrupted scientific research and the medical profession.

It is deeply troubling that we promote vaccination programmes in the third world, not counting the cost, and knowing the good nutrition and clean water will protect several orders of magnitude more effectively against disease and save vastly more lives than vaccines or any medications ever will. We know all of this because we have the stats showing how dramatically disease rates and mortality have fallen in the west over the past 200 years and especially over the last 100+ as living conditions improved generally.

So the answer to your question can our views ever be reconciled, the answer is yes, when the risk benefit equation is sensible and people stop suppression of the information showing the scale of the problems and the extent of iatrogenesis some of the current vaccines cause - and the heavy economic burdens of treatment for the chronic conditions that result. If all kinds are safe and effective with benefits that outweigh the risks, there may be some who might want to object, who are truly "anti-vaccinationist" but they would likely be few and far between. The odds ratio for multiple sclerosis is significant consequent on Hep B vaccination, so should we give it to all infants when the risk is tiny to non-existent for them but their risk of MS is significant? Doctors who believe no, are they anti-vaccinationists? How about doctors who suggest no 'flu vaccines for children because it is unethical to give them something that puts them at risk of an adverse event and when it only might benefit their grandparents? Are they anti-vaccinationists, as Dr Midgely's definition would have us believe? I really do not even want to consider the potential genetic effects or what might happen in the long term or the consequences of things like mothers losing their natural immunity and cannot pass that on to their offspring. We already have adults at risk of sterility as a result of mumps vaccination programmes as Dr Midgely knows all too well. The Invisible Anon 18:00, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

David, thank you for your thoughtful and careful comments on my talk page. All that separates us is access to reliable information to have informed debate. If the information was allowed to flow freely, the matter would be completely different, but it is not so it is not.

If you look carefully you will find the cited mumps disease risk data is made up figures, cobbled together. There are no reliable sources. On rubella, here is a remarkable piece of detective work from the BMJ dishing the dirt [[3]]. As for measles deaths, in well nourished populations these fell to very low levels prior to vaccination and all in developed nations should be preventable now with treatment. There is also good research to show that just vit A halves measles mortality and reduces morbidity in clinical cases. WHO now push vit A hard in the third world.

And then there is the problem of reliable figures on vaccine adverse events. Who knows when anyone will ever ensure events are reported and the data collated. Then there is the problem of getting anyone to take any notice of it.

The abortion debate is difficult particularly because of the strong moral aspect. Vaccination does not have anything like the same conflict and the outcome is not fatal in all cases as with abortion. There are in my view huge numbers of "convenience" terminations. At the same time, it is preferable that those who would have had backstreet abortions have a legal alternative and then there are always the very difficult cases of threat to mother or the infant born severely handicapped or with some other chronic problems.

We can pick this up another time after your break. The Invisible Anon 13:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Width of images

I've added a parameter to address your concern. Details at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anatomy. --Arcadian 15:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IBS Article

Thank you David. Your input is very much appreciated. 70.95.199.228 05:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice comment in the IBS talk page

Very nicely put on the IBS talk page. It came across to me as very friendly and just nice. It was so well written you must have spent a fair amount of time on it. I appreciate the effort. Steve Kd4ttc 15:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Extra space in drugbox

Responded at Template_talk:Drugbox. --Arcadian 14:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bifidobacteria strains

See the comment in the talk page IBS. Steve Kd4ttc 03:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Illegitimate mediaton on Talk:Irritable bowel syndrome

Looking at the Talk:Irritable bowel syndrome the mediation by Cameronian appears to have been invalid. Cameronian is not known to be a memeber of the mediation committee. Likely the issue will be brought up for some sanction against those involved. The discussion about the legitimacy of the mediator can be found at Talk:Irritable bowel syndrome#Mediator called in without protocol Kd4ttc 21:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chemical structure diagrams

File:Lymecycline.png

Like this...

I saw one of your chemical structure diagrams for a medicine article, I was just wondering what program you're using to create them, and if it's free. Obli (Talk)^? 00:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Asthma

Hi David! It's been a while since we chatted. Hope things are well with health and family.:-D

About the external link (I think it was to a regular website by the way, although I may have missed a blog), it was no problem at all, don't mention it. I daresay a mention of the role of chlamydiae infection in asthma will improve the article; if that editor doesn't add referenced edits, I might add a small bit somewhere, later. As always, best wishes to you and yours ENCEPHALON 03:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Parental Notification

I was wondering if you'd give the edit history of Parental notification a once over, because while I know that you don't endorse my POV you don't seem to be one to ignore facts, and you might be able to mediate and make the article neutral for both sides. Chooserr 18:45, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well I haven't known you very long, and know that you don't subscribe to my view point, but you seemed to try to keep emergency contraceptive neutral and attacking both me and my edits. As for the article being US centric I totally agree that it should be expanded to encompass the controversy (if any) in other countries. However I think it should for the most part remain focused on Abortion, Sex Education, and Contraceptives because that is the only thing that makes this really notible. The fact that a university would inform the parents when they find a student plastered doesn't generate to much controversy IMHO. I'll try to look over your message if I get time. Chooserr 05:49, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quote

I'm currently checking (google) to make sure that is an exact quote from the Church, but in the mean time I've re-added it for even though it may be slightly repetitive I believe that an exact quote wouldn't hurt, and it would be more verifiable than Wikipedia just coming out and vaguely point in the pro-life direction saying, "this is what they believe". Chooserr 00:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Have you looked over the Over the Counter bit yet? Just by the link I provided you see that it is at least controversial.