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Revision as of 04:14, 11 August 2005 editPreczewski (talk | contribs)64 edits Add Organ Transplant← Previous edit Revision as of 20:25, 15 August 2005 edit undoDavidruben (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users18,994 edits →[]Next edit →
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I found out from the ] that ] is pretty much a copyviolation of an emedicine article. I've subsequently deleted the text but it needs redoing. I've started with a stub. ] 08:59, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC) I found out from the ] that ] is pretty much a copyviolation of an emedicine article. I've subsequently deleted the text but it needs redoing. I've started with a stub. ] 08:59, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

*Care needs to be taken not to duplicate with ]. Dissection I take to mean the splitting of layer of a blood vessel, vs aneurysm to be a stretched dilatation. An aneurysm may go on to dissect or rupture. ] is a really comprehensive article and needs care in how we move any information over to Aortic Aneurism (if we move too little the we shall end up having to duplicate, but move too much will make each article incomplete). ] 20:25, 15 August 2005 (UTC)


===Regarding ]=== ===Regarding ]===

Revision as of 20:25, 15 August 2005

Archive: 1 2 3

Announcement: Please have a look at the nascent Medical classification scheme here, add to it, correct it, modify it, whatever seems fit. It would be good to have a sound logical scheme worked out before trying to implement it.

You may also want to add and argue at the Very Important Pages and Where They're At.


Template:WPCM navigation

This is the doctors' mess (or lounge, if you're from the USA). In order to streamline the project, this page contains sections where participants can communicate recent work, ideas and pages for review. Afterwards, there is room for general discussion and debriefing.

Mess rules

  • There aren't many rules. Everybody is welcome here to discuss the project, and this is an informal place for informal thinking.
  • Introduce new topics under appropriate existing headings or at the bottom under a level 3 header (e.g. ===Recombinant amyloid===).
  • Please do not shout.
  • No brawling.
  • Please rinse your own coffee cups.

Topics we are currently working on

This is a list of current projects. Individuals may not want to review them yet, since they may not be complete


electronic diagnosis

i am searching for software or websites to help diagnosis via computers. that is, a place where doctors can serach for symptons and find rare related diseases, and discuss medicine cases.

o open based repository for medicine information. does anyone knows one? --Alexandre Van de Sande 17:31, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

statkit1

Check out diabetic neuropathy, make any corrections and wikifications, and let me know what you think.

DryGrain

KSheka (talk)

JFdeWolff

Erich

  • In reality I suspect I'll remain pretty quiet for some time, although my WIKI MCQ engine for anaesthetic education project based on MCQs is coming on nicely (visitors still welcome)
  • I keep the digital camera handy and will aim for the odd photo to upload as well

Alteripse

The list here was outdated. See my user:alteripse page for a list of the articles I have started or added large portions to.

Most relate to growth, sexual development, genetics and metabolism, diabetes and hypoglycemia, and various hormones.

Add suggestions or requests to user_talk:alteripse.

Kpjas

Short term I am going to work on:

If I have some spare time I'd like to lend a hand with coordination work.

Nunh-huh

  • Syphilis - made article a bit more medical. The article would perhaps profit from the attention of a cardiologist (better description of cardiac complications) and a pediatrician (for congenital syphilis).
I'll take a stab at this. But first I'm going to add some structure to the medical portions of the article and more them together (move the description of the different stages to immediately before treatment). Ksheka 11:30, May 20, 2004 (UTC)

kd4ttc

Diberri

drgnu23

Davidruben

  • Oral contraceptive currently includes progesteron-only with combined, but most of side-effects/controversy only relevant to oestrogen. I think oral contraceptive should become just a brief introduction paragraph that links to separate COCP & POP pages. Have started a Progesterone only pill as a stub and will try, after my holiday, to port across relevant bits. Whole of contraception needs tidying up, consistant layout, standardised effectiveness and pro/cons between them (all in good time).

Things up for review

This is a list of recently completed pages that request review for factual/design/completeness reasons

KSheka (talk)

I've stopped saying my pages are not done. My pages are never done. :-) Ksheka

JFdeWolff


Diberri

Aside

Cloudsurfer

  • Diagnosis - This had something about history and I have added a section on hypothesis testing as well as toning down a rather overenthusiastic view that we could diagnose everything from the DNA. This is a core issue in medicine and really needs to be presented with references and academic justification. It could easily include the differential diagnosis within it with a redirect. Separating them is somewhat artificial.

Iglesias


Hitokirishinji

  • Hemoglobin - Added more info about different types, heme and a little more on the biochemistry behind CO poisoning, sorry if I stepped on any toes here, JFdeWolff if you want hemoglobin, I'll stop adding to it
  • Goblet cell - Created the stub, going to add more but need a free pic?
  • Thalassemia - added a little to the beta part

Davidruben

  • Pharyngitis - I split viral from bacterial. I listed some causative viruses - I'm sure there were more viruses I was taught at Medical School. I also tried applying some structure to symptoms & complications of streptococcal sore throats. Added some limks re the dabate as to the role antibiotics (Cochrane review and articl;es discussing it). Still needs some work, and I would be happy for any comments/suggestions David Ruben 15:14, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Preczewski

General talk

Another new wiki

Hihi, I'm a medical student in London and i've have been playing around with the mediawiki software the past few days. I chanced myself upon here by accident via links from Medipedia.org (dead link Courtland 03:35, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)). Well, I have also created another medical wiki site not too long ago (Nov 2003). It's called Mednotes.net (dead link Courtland 03:35, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)) and it aims to be a medical textbook of sorts targetted towards undergraduate students first and later postgraduate if it becomes "successful". Not much has been added in the mediawiki site yet, however quite a few articles are being imported from an older Mednotes site based on TWiki. Mednotes provides concise outlines of various conditions and tries to integrate this with examination, history taking, differential diagnosis and EBM into every article. It's under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. I just read a few posts above (WikiMD.org, Mediwiki and Misplaced Pages sites) which mention that the target audience for medical students are questionable. I feel that it might be true for those who are already participating in Misplaced Pages, however there is a subpopulation of medical students who are interested in contributing articles at their level of knowledge for others to benefit. Many are making electronic notes already for themselves and most of these notes are a mish mash of various facts from everywhere. I think only a small step is needed to to share what they have made and that is especially after they have just graduated. It might not be as detailed as in wikipedia but it would be shared information nonetheless at a level suitable for medical students and possibly even the public and you never know, it might be easy to use summaries good enough to flesh out in wikipedia for full fledged articles.

Cheers from london, --Weiming 12:10, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hi Weiming. Your efforts are much to be applauded. Wiki is a perfect format for a textbook, especially when you aim to keep things up-to-date (my textbooks from the late 1990s are already outdated!) You should be able to use wikipedia articles under the GFDL and adapt them to your audience. (PS which medical school are you in?) 19:20, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Thanks Jfdwolff for your comment, it is good to know that I am heading in the correct direction. I agree that a wiki is the perfect tool for a textbook, however I am always plagued by comments from potential contributors that the textbook is not trustable as it is not verified by recognised individuals in their field. It is sorta a chicken and egg thing. Anyway, I am definitely going to try and keep things up to date. It would be quite a challenge to do so but that is where the wikipedia, and come in handy. I'm a bit confused on what Wikiprojects imply, is mine one or is it a strictly defined entity in Misplaced Pages? Am asking cos I'm wondering whether I could get a link onto the project page in the "related wikiprojects" section. I would like some publicity to increase interest over the textbook. For the last question, I am a 4th year clinical student from Royal Free and University College medical school. Cheers, --Weiming 21:42, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Current list of articles imported into Mednotes:

I don't think you need to mention this here. But: do remind to prominently display Misplaced Pages as the original reference somewhere, as doing otherwise would be in violation of the GFDL. JFW | T@lk 14:42, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

featuring (non) result

Diabetes Mellitus was recently nominated for WP featured article status. Despite some extensive editing in response to comments, it failed to reach that status. I am unsure just why, exactly, as it seemed that the objections noted were effectively and promptly addressed, but ... The nomination, comments and general back and forth are archived at featured article nominations. Those interested in contributing might want to note the colloquy at which includes (more or less) the only remaining issues I can think of that might be appropriately addressed in a WP article. Maybe another pass at featured status in a couple of months might be appropriate, particularly if an endorsement from official WP medical folk as to accuracy is available. Anyway, I thought folks here might want to know. ww 20:23, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Diabetes is still a mess. Needs splitting into subarticles: complications of diabetes, etc. JFW | T@lk 08:48, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

eMedicine articles as references

As I'm not a physician myself, I'm curious as to what you docs are using as your references when writing articles. In particular, I've stumbled upon eMedicine more than a few times while Googling for a particular medical topic, and was wondering what your thoughts are in using it as a source of good clinical material. After reading their entries on patent ductus arteriosus and mitral valve prolapse, my first impression is definitely a positive one: most articles are edited by multiple docs, updated frequently (the PDA and MVP articles aren't even a month old), and the overall information in articles seems pretty comprehensive. What are your thoughts? --Diberri | Talk 06:08, Jun 25, 2004 (UTC)

Emedicine is very good, but I don't know how permanent their URLs are. JFW | T@lk 08:48, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
emedicine is good and I don't have a good sense of its permanence for purposes of linking-- probably pretty good. I don't use it as a source because I know most of the topics I'm writing about at least to the depth of an emedicine article. The articles are reliable, and I haven't noticed errors, but the articles are similar to medical student textbooks or a quickly accessible source for out-of-our specialty overviews. In other words, you have to know a little more than that to treat patients with the diseases covered. Does that make sense? Alteripse 12:10, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Personlly, I normally write off the top of my head from memory. The BMJ is great as it is online in HTML (hate reading pdfs online). Erich 17:55, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. Unfortunately, I hardly ever edit clinical articles off the top of my head, and need to make good use of external sources. I'm glad eMedicine can stay in my repertoire. Thanks, docs! --Diberri | Talk 18:10, Jun 30, 2004 (UTC)

Dave, the Emedicine articles are generally based on a few good systematic reviews. My general approach to articles is to find those reviews (e.g. in the NEJM) and abstract the relevant material accordingly. When more/better material becomes available (e.g. proof of rosiglitazone for PCOS), this can be worked into the article body later. JFW | T@lk 08:40, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

CPR pictures

i'm tinkering with cpr currently and i'm in the market for some pictures or diagrams... a quick google scan fails to find any in the public domain. Dib I thought you may be up for the job, or anybody really. The main pictures I need to illustrate the following:

  • head tilt and jaw thrust
    • perhaps one of those cross-sections that illustrates a before with the tongue epiglottis occluding the pharynx and a after with it lifted clear.
  • correct hand placement for chest compression (two finger breadths above xiphisternum with heel of hand only on sternum and fingers clear of ribs)
  • recovery position
  • most of the above with children as well

post a note if you think you may be able to help so we don't have more than one of us all photographing our wives hovering over our kids lying on the living room floor!! Erich 17:51, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Who's "Dib"? --Diberri | Talk 06:18, Jul 4, 2004 (UTC)
maaaatee :-) Erich 10:50, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Erich, I think schematic pictures would be much better than you with User:Ratgurl or one of your toddlers in some complicated resus procedure :-). Also, I would recommend using schematic drawings for tracheotomy and open heart massage, for reduction of gore factor, even if these pictures could be found in the public domain. As I have limited experience with computer illustration (I prefer to draw diagrams and molecules), we might need to ask a non-medic from the 'Pedia to help us there. JFW | T@lk 08:40, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

mmm hadn't thought about open cardiac massage on the living room floor... maybe if they misbehave... would need a very big plastic sheet. I agree schematics would be better, but currently CPR has virtually nothing so anything an improvement and I can't draw either! I've had a few trial shoots on teh living room floor but have yet to come up with a series that meets my high standard (although the kids playing dead are very very cute!!). In two weeks I'm starting a six month ICU stint (groan) and will be back on the arrest team. I may catch a few juicy photos then. Erich 10:50, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

HIV

Who is going to read this week's The Lancet closely and update HIV, AIDS and related? JFW | T@lk 08:40, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Aortic aneurysm

I found out from the Misplaced Pages:Pages needing attention that aortic aneurysm is pretty much a copyviolation of an emedicine article. I've subsequently deleted the text but it needs redoing. I've started with a stub. Alex.tan 08:59, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

  • Care needs to be taken not to duplicate with Aortic dissection. Dissection I take to mean the splitting of layer of a blood vessel, vs aneurysm to be a stretched dilatation. An aneurysm may go on to dissect or rupture. Aortic dissection is a really comprehensive article and needs care in how we move any information over to Aortic Aneurism (if we move too little the we shall end up having to duplicate, but move too much will make each article incomplete). David Ruben 20:25, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Irismeister

This user has been banned from editing on the english wikipedia (? period) for POV editwars, particularly on alternative medical topics, especially iridology. I propose removing him from the wikidoc membership list until he proves himself worthy of being a normal wikipedia member. Alex.tan 08:59, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Working on ARDS

Hi, I'm rewriting the Respiratory distress syndrome page. Content's not fully there, yet, but I was wondering what tags or other special code I should include to 'categorize' the article within the project. Thanks in advance for the info, Aside 14:53, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

To categorise, you add ] at the bottom. The wiki picks it up and adds this article to the relevant category. To link to a category, make use to add a colon before the name, because otherwise the page you're working on is added to the category as well! For example ] takes you to Category:Hematology. JFW | T@lk 15:37, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Worked on ARDS...

Hi,

I finally wrote something on ARDS, please check it out. It's not yet complete:

  • I didn't really feel like going through the whole inflammatory process in detail (I'm more fond of ventilation and pulmonary physiology)
  • I don't have a strong enough knowledge on the fibrotic phase and long-term outcome, but I'm documenting soon.
  • I'm finishing the sub-sections on nitric oxide, prone position etc... tomorrow or soon anyhow.
  • Cross-linking with SARS and various pneumonia information on Wiki is still missing. I'll work that out too.
  • I planned to include just a few essential journal-style references... I only got one in, will add more

I took the liberty of moving the page from Respiratory distress syndrome to Acute... I think Acute* is the most widely used term right now. I put redirects anywhere I could think of, if there are any problems let me know and I'll undo all changes. If you like the move instead, do you guys think I should add a redirect from ARDS and then link to the disambiguation from there (the way Erich did with CPR)? Aside 21:57, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

huh, what did I do? it wasn't me... was it? Erich 07:26, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Firstly, applause to Aside for working on this immensely hard subject. AFAIK, Acute is the common parlance. At any rate, most intensivists will talk in acronyms anyway (is he DIC'ing? look at his APTT!!) <grin>
Please do double-check how much is available on wikipedia about inflammation. You'll be shocked to learn that these basic subjects are badly written up because the field is changing so rapidly. I'm trying all the time to lure potential immunologists and chemical pathologists into this horrendous task. It seems pharmacists have finally started working on the drug articles (see macrolide for a good example).
Journal-style references are very good. Links to fulltext are encouraged when the info is non-subscription (e.g. the British Medical Journal), otherwise the Pubmed abstract will do...
JFW | T@lk 23:24, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

article template

I thought it was time start picking at that. Thanks JfW. Given that we are writing in an encyclopeadia, I think that that should have prevelance and societal impacts as the first section though. Maybe not a big section, but the fact a condition affects 1 in 20 of the population or 1 in 20000 I think is a really important scene-setter. just a thought... Erich 07:54, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What do people think about the above suggestion? Erich 02:35, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
ps I've been thinking we need some type of wiki-triage system to try to focus us on the big topics. I know a lot of the fun is just wandering around where the muse takes us and wouldn't want to suggest we stop doing that... but maybe a page where we listed topics by significance with some sort of critique would help direct our wanderings in the a bit. ... mind still turning over... We could kick off festivities by creating a list of the 20 most important pages for the project (this list could spill onto, a list of the top 50, then top 200 as we fiddle.) we could argue about the importance of each topic, but at the same time assess each page rating the quality (of content and of writing). Now MNH is gone (I miss you John!), this could cure my boredom!
I may play here in a little while Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Clinical medicine/top priority Erich 07:54, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Well, personally, I've currently got the impetus to go make Diabetes mellitus feature article quality. It's boring, but it's important on a worldwide scale. I think a list of top 50 articles we would like to make feature quality is a good idea for having a group focus. Alex.tan 08:01, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Please start the diabetes revision. I have been working for the last 2 months on various articles related to sexual development, puberty, and growth and am about halfway through the intended set of articles, but I will help with the diabetes articles too.Alteripse 10:46, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wikitriage

see the notice re VIPs Erich 13:38, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Interesting Video

File:Hirshowitz gastroduodenoscope.jpg
Hirshowitz's endoscope

I got video from one of the first diagnostic endoscopies from Dr. Hirshowitz. How can I upload this? Also I uploaded the image of Hirshowitz's first endoscope, photo courtesy of Hirshowitz. Kd4ttc 00:24, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Some pages to look at

Hi docs, could you look at the following pages please. 1. Thomas Barlow, Royal Physician. I have put in his career details but I'm not so certain about what he did to medicine. 2. phagy - I have written a stub on the ecological term but it also has medical meanings I think. Dunc_Harris|☺ 10:17, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)


disturbing content on 'pedia

I just came accross this distburbing post in my meanderings. Through gritted teeth I've just had a go at one of the pages, but Child sexuality is technically well beyond me. Alteripse! help!! my reflex would be to request speedy delete on the lot but I'm trying to be NPOV. feel free to dust along side and be even more vigorous! best wishes to all Erich 10:52, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you and support what you did. Please keep doing it. I think the JAMA article you found says everything better than I could. I would ask for rapid administrative support right from the top to direct all related content to a single article on pedophilia that is carefully monitored and maintained to protect this entire project from content that could destroy it and make us all sorry to have been involved, at least in this country. Nothing would make me halt participation here faster than accommodating material that could be construed as supportive. I will add this to the mailing list later. Thank you for bringing it up. Alteripse 12:36, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
good. thanks. well I'm going to bed soon and will leave this to other timezones to push. I'll pick up the batton tommorro ;-) Erich 12:58, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I have just read the article Child sexuality. I do not believe this article should be under a "a single article on pedophilia" since the article in question doesn't really mention pedophilia but is about sexuality in children. I realise the article is translated from German and this makes it difficult but it really would be better able to stand where it is if each of the claims was referenced. Being a psychiatrist who has read some of the literature, nothing in the article jars except perhaps the claim "Sexology agrees that a person longs for sexual satisfaction from birth to ripe old age. Male fetuses are even known to have erections." This seems to be a non sequitur and the first sentence needs to be justified by references. As long as the article contains credible research backed statements presented in a NPOV manner then I think it's OK. --CloudSurfer 20:05, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I agree. Please perform the indicated surgery on the article. I would extract both sentences.Alteripse 20:22, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Done with it being put on the talk page for discussion. --CloudSurfer 20:48, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Added gastroenteritis

Please feel free to add/edit. BjarteSorensen 13:00, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

By the way, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Bjarte Sorensen, and I am a fifth year medical student (undergraduate program) at University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Originally I'm from Norway.

I would like to try to contribute to Misplaced Pages some more in the future. I often find that when studying I write small articles about what I'm learning anyway for my own use.

I am currently doing a placement in paediatrics. Contrary to many American medical faculties, my university has an undergraduate program, i.e. entry into the program was direct from high school. Our education is general and includes teaching in all specialties. This enables us to work as interns in general medicine, general surgery and psychiatry in Australia after 6 years of studying. Specialisation is not on most people's mind until after a year's internship. Current non-medical interests include languages, linguistics, writing systems, xml, photography, music. BjarteSorensen 13:18, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Gedday Bjarte, finally had a look at gastro. That's a great article. Well done and good on you! That is exactly what 'pedia needs - a few more excellent summaries of core topics. Erich 15:10, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Structure of medical articles

On User_talk:Mehrenberg, Mehrenberg and myself have been exchanging views on the ideal structure of the medical articles. To summarise, Mehrenberg favours a structure that puts "epidemiology" and "history" at the top, while I feel that these sections only belong at the top of articles when the disease in question is a major public health concern or tropical disease (e.g. malaria, tuberculosis), where it will be known to most of our readers through the news. Conversely, most other articles should not have these sections on top, because the impact to the average reader is more "personal", and epidemiology is quite meaningless ("the doctor just told me I might have Parkinson's, even though I have to tremor; why is the doctor saying that? I don't care much for the annual incidence...").
At any rate, I would strongly suggest to keep the "pathophysiology" section somewhere in the middle, and certainly not at the top. In most articles, such a section does not make sense without a listing of classical signs and diagnostic findings.
Please offer comments on this issue; responses will be tallied to decide policy on this issue :-) JFW | T@lk 18:25, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sorry JFW, I'm with Mehrenberg on this. I also think "epidemiology" and "history" belong at the top. Erich 01:17, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Epidemiology and pathophysiology deserve top billing to ensure our scientific understanding of a disease entity, or the lack of understanding. History of the knowledge of a disease plays a strong role in our understanding and misunderstanding, as well. Before declaring a constellation of features as "written in stone", we need to convince our audience that this constellation has logical and scietific coherence. Mehrenberg 23:45, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

At the very beginning of this Wikiproject, we discussed if medical articles should be aimed at lay readership or at people with some scientific grounding. The consensus was back then that articles should start with information that is easily digested by Joe Bloggs (UK version of John Doe). In this respect, I would argue forcefully against the prominence of pathophysiology. In the intro, there is room for some short explanation ("Multiple sclerosis has no known cause, but it is considered an autoimmune disorder by most scientists"). Later on, after the signs/symptoms and diagnostic process have been discussed, a paragraph on pathophysiology will give the required background, but not before the classic signs and workup have been discussed.
As for history and epidemiology, I remain in doubt if this is what the reader is interested about. Again, some important information can be presented in the intro, will fuller detail given in paragraphs further down in the article. JFW | T@lk 15:06, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, I think we should come to some consensus - soon - and write it down somewhere in these pages so that there's a template to follow for new articles and for further editing of older articles so that there's not too much of a jumbled up mess of different ways different diseases are presented. Can we vote on it or something? Alex.tan 09:36, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I defer to the majority vote, but I maintain that articles get boring if they start with epidemiology and history. JFW | T@lk 16:28, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

m2cw: epidimiology is an important scene setter, and would often stand alone as a nice introduction. I'm only thinking about 10 to 150 words. The things that I would include in this section are:

  1. incidence or prevelence - in English speaking countries in general, and other populations as relevent - especially those at particularly high or low risk.
  2. comments on subgroups Eg common in the elderly, only seen as a complication of HIV, common in farm-workers, overseas tourists, IVDU etc etc.
  3. risk factors - especially those amenable to modification - smoking, sedentary lifestyle
  4. impact
    1. economic see Quadriplegia for one example
    2. personal - death, disability, morbity

History makes a neat first section and builds a logical flow, things to include:

  1. first described by, where? when?
  2. previous names eg dropsy, consumption
  3. time course of major breakthroughs...

so I imagining a nice time-based flow to articles:

  1. start with epi' to set the scene... then
  2. history
  3. features: symptoms -> signs -> Ix findings
  4. treatment
  5. prognosis
  6. research directions
    1. I would include any pathophysiology that does not get covered in any of the above here... because if it isn't relevent to diagnosis or treatement then we must only be interested in it because it offers future prospects

thats m2cw, happy to argue ;-) Erich 19:48, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've observed that quite a few of the less than mainstream medically-related articles are often a mess, and I'm not even sure where to begin fixing things. Are there any suggested templates for general fields (e.g. alternative medicine or chiropractic medicine as well as for organizations (i.e. American Medical Association)? Thanks! Edwardian 01:26, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to the doctors' lounge and to Misplaced Pages in general. You are correct, many of the medical and "sorta" medical articles are not very impressive. Some are starters copied from some public domain patient information sheets. Some are written by those on an ideological mission. Some of the more popular topics, especially those related to sexuality and alternative medicine, get the "thousands of 2 cent contributions" because everyone feels qualified to add some petty detail or dumb down a vivid sentence. These become numbingly tedious to read, express perfectly the narrow political correctness of a liberal college campus, and are not wikipedia's best. They remind me of a face created by morphing a hundred other faces-- no character and less interesting than real people (my opinion only of course). So there are huge amounts of uncultivated wilderness here. Please stake a claim and start plowing. alteripse 01:57, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

List of diseases

Is there anything useful about a list of diseases, most of which are repeated entries of earlier disease, most of which are undefined. I was tempted to start editing the pages list of diseases starting with A, but it is very long and unappealing. What do you think? Mehrenberg 22:55, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

I agree - the only thing good about those lists is they would not have taken long to cut and paste from somewhere. Rather than starting at A, I reckon we should start with the most important topics... as a step in that direction I created Very Important Pages and Where They're At so we could triage the pages needing work. It's a collective work in progress - feel free to (actually: please) add to the list and reorder it. Erich 06:53, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

New category and article : problem of vocabulary

Hi there. I'm a french guy involved in the first aid project in the french Wikipédia. I would like to create a new category and possibly a new article to transpose the french article, but I lack a bit of specific vocabulary.

The category I want to create is the translation of transport sanitaire, it would be a sub-category of category:first aid, category:transportation, and would contain ambulance, evacuation, MEDEVAC, stretcher. Nunh-huh Suggested me Category:Patient transport, do you agree with this?

Concerning the articles, it is about the scoop (grab and put on the stretcher, relevage in french). I've been told this term was a kind of slang and that the correct term would be lifting. Now I have the choice between Lifting (emergency medicine) and Lifting (first aid), any opinion?

Cdang 07:24, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The commonly used term, AFAIK, is that of patient transfers. This brings to mind the fact that the commonly used plastic (?fibreglass) slide called the "Patslide" used to move patients from one trolley to the bed or operating table or vice versa. Personally, I don't think lifting should be the appropriate term used. Alex.tan 08:09, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
To be sure I was clear, I am talking about grabbing the patient from the ground at the site of the accident (transfer sounds to me more like a hospital procedure than a prehospital one — am I wrong?). Cdang 09:30, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's hard for me to imagine a reader ever searching for an entire article about lifting even if you could fill it. In English some of the common terms are

  • first aid, which usually denotes the immediate response of a non-professional to an injury or emergency that occurs suddenly in front of him (like putting a tourniquet on a bleeding limb, Heimlich manuever for choking, running cold water on a burn, or mouth to mouth/hand to chest CPR (called "basic life support")
  • paramedic care, which denotes the care given by trained health professionals called paramedics at the scene of an emergency. Paramedic training and pay is below the level of physicians and comparable to some categories of nurse. They are typically employed, dispatched, controlled, and directed by a hospital to which they will then transport the patient. Sometimes they work for a police or fire dept of a city. Either way, paramedics are the transport specialists. Their vehicle is the ambulance or helicopter. They can give drugs, draw blood, and start an IV under protocol/guideline limits or under remote authority of a physician at the emergency dept of their hospital. They usually arrive at the scene of an emergency by 911 call. They can provide "advanced life support" (drugs, iv, intubation of airway) at the scene of a cardiac or respiratory arrest before they transport the patient to the hospital. The term "transport" as both verb and noun is more often used in North America than other terms like transportation, transfer, or evacuation. As this care has become more elaborate, the word "scoop" seems less and less applicable.
  • emergency department care (formerly emergency room) denotes care given immediately at arrival to a hospital. This is provided by physicians, nurses, and other professionals. Increasingly the ED physicians specialize in emergency medicine by taking a residency in that specialty. Patients typically stay in an ED up to a few hours. Does this help? Alteripse 12:08, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for your precision; there is here a cultural discrepancy I would like to clear. In France, the premiers secours (first aid) includes professional but non-paramedic care (performed by the firemen), and can also be performed by volunteers: associations (more than 15 national associations like the french Red cross, St John of Malta, volunteers of the civil protection...) have all the device (splints, oxygen, stretcher, long spine board, cervical collar, AED) to take care of not too serious cases, and sometimes even evacuate. This is why made the mistake between "first aid" and "paramedic care".
Concerning the "It's hard for me to imagine a reader ever searching for an entire article about lifting even if you could fill it": the aim of an encyclopaedia is IMHO to give the maximum information, so the reader can understand better the world around him/her; it may also be a free source for instructors (the french official manuals can be freely downloaded, but that's only since 2-3 years, and not all are still available). A friend of mine, giving first aid lessons in the US, asked for illustrations of the compression points because he could simply not find any free and was not good enough to draw them himself (you can now find them at fr:point de compression). Additionally, I think it is a good way to exchange technics. I will describe the lifting technics used in France, you will describe the ones used in your own country.
Cdang 12:42, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Bon jour Cdang, "casualty" is a good alternative to "patient" for your firstaid articles and allows you to avoid the clumsy "(first aid)". Personally, i'd call your Lifting (first aid) article casualty movement and I'd have "category:Patient transport". Transport of critically ill patients is a scary chapter in anaesthetic, ICU and ED textbooks. (urg, I'm getting flashbacks) best wishes Erich 23:40, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! That's precisely the kind of element I missed; in France, we make the difference between a victime and a patient, the difference is before or after the arrival of the MD, so the concept has now a name (-:
Another (last?) question: in France, pre-hospital care is performed either by a non-medical and non-paramedic team, or by a medical team (smur = MD+nurse+ambulance driver). Does the non-paramedic team correspond to the "first responders"? (60h of initial training, non drug or medication, no invasive act such as intubation or IV, but oxygenotherapy, immobilisation, lifting, AED...)
This non-paramedic (both professional and volunteer) care is called secourisme (something like "rescuism") or prompt secours ("fast aid"); how could I translate it? -- Cdang 07:26, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

By "lifting" you are not just talking about moving the patient a meter upward to put him on a stretcher or bed? Do you use "lifting" to refer to the whole process of transport? No wonder I couldn't imagine writing a whole article about lifting! Emergency care isn't what I do, so I'll bow out of this discussion. Alteripse 20:20, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, I mean a whole article about just lifting a patient 50 cm high and put him on the stretcher, and there are a lot of technics; in France, we teach 5 basic technics without intermediate device, plus the specific cases such as patient in recovery position, legs lifted, half sitted... Essentially depending on the patient condition and the number of people available (you can see excerpts of the official french manual here, but this page is a violation of copyright, one of the reasons why I would like to make my own GFDL drawings such as this one). With modern meterial, you may need only two basic technics with two or three people (e.g. rotating the patient to put him on the long spine board, or use the scoop stretcher), but in extreme conditions such as disasters, or in countries with less developped emergency services (let us not be North-POV), it may be easier to find hands than to find devices.
About the rest of the transport, I am also working on a specific article on fr: (fr:brancardage), for the same reason: you sometimes don't have a wheeled stretcher or a helicopter; I spent two weeks in a Kosovo refugee camp in Albania, so I experienced such "lack of device and infrastructure" situation.
But I understand your lack of interest about this topic; no one excpects evrybody to be interested in the 33 4621 pages that are probably legitimate articles on the english Misplaced Pages... Cdang 07:08, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC) I lack interest, but you just put in enough detail to convince me you can make an article that someone else might find useful. If you look at some of the esoterica I've written about, I have no business discouraging any article that is actually not about some minor character in a defunct cartoon, which is what wikipedia is all too full of. Happy writing!Alteripse 11:51, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
good on you Cdang. These are all good topics. I'll try to drop by some time to help with the FrAnglish. I'm still on the hunt for CPR pictures myself. Erich 07:45, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanx ^_^ maybe I'll make some drawings once I finish the ones with casualty lifting. Now, I would like to create a category called category:First responder and paramedic care to make the difference with category:firts aid; do you think it is suitable? Cdang 11:23, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Just a word to tell you that I followed the various advices. I created the category:patient transport and the category:prehospital care, the Casualty lifting article is a bit developped in parallel to its french version, and I hope to work on Casualty movement one day...

Thanx to all

Cdang 14:39, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OMIM (and Medline)

Over the last few months I've written a number of articles that link to OMIM, the McKusick catalogue, that can be searched with Entrez. To make things easier, I've designed a template: Template:OMIM. It works in the following fashion:

{{OMIM|305900}}

expands to:

Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM): 305900

Please comment on this feature, and tell me if you like it! JFW | T@lk 15:35, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's definitely cool. - Nunh-huh 17:49, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
oh very very nice Erich 23:29, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)... but can you do it for papers?
Quite cool. Would it be useful to do the same thing for PMIDs? --Diberri | Talk 00:14, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)


try Template:PMID:
{{PMID|9670131}} expands to: "PMID 9670131"
hows that? Erich 07:41, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Original format Template PMID will be deleted as Wiki recognizes PMID as inline code Petersam 01:30, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Good idea. Perhaps it should be in a box? Any examples of usage so far? Alex.tan 05:53, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sadly, it works for maximum five instances on each page. Blame the developers. Articles with =<5 references will have no problems. Any larger and subst will be required. JFW | T@lk 06:29, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

  • What do you mean by "subst"? And have you asked the developers? Could it be as simple as changing a variable limit in the software from 5 to, say, 25? Alteripse 02:01, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Subst is {{subst:OMIM|101200}}. This doesn't create a template link, but the wikiprocessor puts the template text into the article. AFAIK, there is no upper limit to this. I haven't asked a developer, but it seems 5 is the ceiling... JFW | T@lk 08:52, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)


I recently took a slightly different approach for a more general reference to peer-reviewed literature in the External References section of the Cancer Misplaced Pages article. In this case I added two links, one to a MeSH term in the context of PubMed where the term could be added to a PubMed query, and the other to a MeSH term in the context of the MeSH browser (unfortunately locked to the 2005 version) which provides tree-traversal and term narrowing capability (but sadly not direct incorporation of term into a PubMed search). Both links were prefaced by an explanatory paragraph. My question is whether you see a place for expansion of this type of addition to certain (or many) pages as a way to reference a body of literature as opposed to single papers. Note that completion of the PubMed search would provide links to many journals that provide free public content. ~ Courtland (user Ceyockey)

Evidence based medicine

I came up with an interesting way to keep tract of the articles that I am interested in. What I do is keep a bookmark that points to the medline reference for the article. Then, in folders, I arrange the bookmarks based on what the articles are about. Using folders within folders, it is an easy way to keep tract of a lot of articles. As a bonus, since I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser, it allows me to easily search the bookmarks for a particular bookmark, allowing me fast access to the medline abstract for any study that I bookmarked.

For example, I created a folder called CHF. Inside that folder is a folder called Digoxin. Inside that folder is a bookmark that points to the medline abstract for the DIG trial.

Using this to keep tract of my references, I'll probably be adding more references to my Wiki articles. Just something I thought some of you guys might find interesting/useful. :-)

Ksheka 22:52, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

If we had more people here, your system could be a great collaborative process. However, I yawn at digoxin and expect you would be equally unenthusiastic about my ped endo refs. We need to recruit more docs! Alteripse 23:31, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

True, it's not really good for group efforts. I'm not even sure if I would like other cardiologists to mess around with my list. But for each individual to keep track of which articles they find useful, it's a pretty good way to remain paperless. Ksheka 23:52, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

If you need more search capabilities.. I like to email certain links, articles, etc. with GMail. It has the same search capabilities as google. I commonly use it to search through email headers to find what article, number, topic, person, etc. I was looking for. It's still currently in Beta, but it's pretty easy to get an invite.

--Daria k 23:18, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Boxes and categories

Would it be a good idea to add the boxes to the categories under the description of the category? The medicine box to the medicine category below the description of the medicine category and so on? - Fuelbottle | Talk 20:27, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)

APH's project

User:APH has been trying to make a List of publications in medicine, which will collate all breakthrough publications sorted by field. In order to maximise attention to this page, APH has created links to the relevant subsection on all medicine pages, even when the related section in the "list of publications" is empty. Although I applaud the documentation project, I find the links to empty sections misleading and uninformative. I have therefore felt it necessary to revert all the link additions (a lot of work). APH has not responded to a posting on his userpage for a clarification; hopefully he/she will respond to the email I have sent today. Please give your views on this project, and consider adding some articles to the list in question. JFW | T@lk 06:27, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Which publications are considered important is very subjective. For instance, in the field of cardiology, one of my drug reps gave me a 3000+ page pocket book (if such a thing could fit in any pocket) listing a couple thousand studies that are influential in the field of cardiolgy.
I feel that studies that are important for a particular subject should be referenced in the article on that subject, with a medline reference (if available) at the end of the article, just like a regular journal article uses. (As an example, see the references section of atrial septal defect.) This gives a context for the study, with the text of the article explaining how the results of multiple studies can be compared with each other. Ksheka 01:31, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

This has been my approach. Still, there may be room for the real landmark publications (e.g. identification of the AIDS virus, the 4S study). APH may have underestimated the immense volume of medical publications. I try to provide authentic references to as many articles as I write. JFW | T@lk 08:52, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My feeling is that those landmark papers should be taken into the proper context. For instance, the papers that first identified the HIV virus can be mentioned in the history section of the HIV article, giving it proper context and mention the parallel work done in the US and Europe. As for the 4S study, while it's a great paper advocating the use of statins (and should be refered to in the hypercholesterolemia pages), on the simvastatin page it should be mentioned along with the (recently completed) A to Z study, which showed decreased tolerance to high-dose simvastatin. Ksheka 11:41, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)
More of my response can be found on my talk page. Ksheka 17:25, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

gedday folk, just to let you know I still visit from time to time :-) must say I think we'd be better buffing the 200 most important article list than tring to formulate a list of grand papers. hope you are all well! best wishes Erich 11:38, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Specialisms of medicine

Category talk:Specialisms of medicine. Specialisms' – Is this an actual word? I just thought I should check with some people in the proffession before I moved the page and changed the links.--ZayZayEM 09:05, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

IMHO, that aint a word. Speciality is my preferred term although one of my bosses once told me that speciality is what restaurants have and he preferred specialty. best wishes Erich 17:55, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Dictionary.com says... Specialisms - 1. Concentration of one's efforts in a given occupation or field of study. 

  2. A field of specialization.

- ism - A distinctive doctrine, system, or theory. - spe·cial·ties 

  1. A special pursuit, occupation, aptitude, or skill. See Synonyms at forte1.
  2. A branch of medicine or surgery, such as cardiology or neurosurgery, in which a physician specializes; the field or practice of a specialist.
  3. A special feature or characteristic; a peculiarity.
  4. The state or quality of being special or distinctive.
  5. An item or a product of a distinctive kind or of particular superiority...
  6. Law. A special contract or agreement, especially a deed kept under seal.

So.. In American english... specialties. I guess. Is it different in another country? Is there a region of the US that uses the ism?

I'm an almost-graduated medical student in Chicago. I have never heard the term "specialism"; we always say specialty. — Knowledge Seeker দ 02:41, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think specialty is American and speciality is British English. No one claims specialism as far as I know and I would reject it. alteripse 03:29, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In Australia I think specialty is preferred and one of my bosses when I was working in England a few years ago told me that he thought speciality is what restaraunts have! so i'd go with specialty. Erich 12:11, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Request for help -- MRI controversy

The articles on Magnetic resonance imaging and Raymond V. Damadian have been anonymously edited in ways that seem to me to violate NPOV (concerning Damadian's complaints about the award of the 2003 Nobel Prize in medicine). I'm not knowledgeable about the technical issues, though. I've tried to NPOV the Damadian article but haven't even touched MRI. Even on Damadian, I may have left in too little or too much of the anon's dismissal of Damadian's work. If anyone can take a look it would be appreciated. JamesMLane 02:58, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

ECG pings

Gedday all, how you all doing? yeah I know I've been quiet but I still lurk from time to time. The 15 bed ICU i'm currently in is finally down to 4 patients giving me some down time (the cardiac surgeons are all at the beach a conference.

I confess I've actually been spending time on my own project rather than tinkering much here. so... I've been writing a few MCQs on arrhythmia diagnosis and Px and I thought there may be a few ECG traces I could pinch... alas no. Is anybody planning to create any? Erich 18:05, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Actually planning on adding some pictures (including ECGs) in about a month. The only ones I remember uploading in the past are on the atrial flutter and arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia pages. Ksheka 02:30, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

Behavioral disorder

While looking at Kluver-Bucy syndrome, I noticed it had no category. So I tried Category:Behavioral disorder, but that doesn't exist. Even worse, Behavioral disorder is a completely inappropriate redirect to National Institute of Mental Health.

Is the term "behavorial disorder" a medically defined term to begin with, or just a popular medicine label? Could anyone with more knowledge sort the matter out? I want to turn Behavioral disorder into a stub, but I have zero expert knowledge to do it with. JRM 16:24, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC)

Kluver-Bucy syndrome is a behavioral disorder resulting from organic hypothalamic dysfunction-- i.e., an organic brain syndrome. It is usually categorized as a neuropsychiatric disorder. It could go under psychiatric disorders if we have such a category.alteripse 17:41, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Muscular system woefully inadequeate

I have a bio-med exam tomorrow, so while I was on break from studying I wrote Power stroke, and it's pretty scary to see how many red links there are to some pretty important musclar-system topics. Muscle contraction seems like a very important article, which no one has gotten around to writing. So I just thought I'd drop you guys a note here. →Raul654 04:03, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

Raul, if you make the stubs I'll dust off my physiology textbooks! JFW | T@lk 07:10, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I started this baby - Muscle contraction. →Raul654 06:44, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

Old pages

A number of the oldest of the old pages listed on Special:Ancientpages are obscure diseases. It would be great if some of these could be dealt with by being categorized. Listed below are some of the oldest. - SimonP 17:13, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

Seems to me that all these articles now have been categorized. Alex.tan 21:01, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Category:Medicine

I've been moving articles from Category:Medicine to the appropriate subcategories, but there are a lot of articles and some help would be appreciated. In general, medical articles are categorised in two types categories: by the medical specialism they belong in (e.g. Category:Pulmonology) and by their etiology (e.g. Category:Autoimmune diseases and/or Category:Eponymous diseases). JFW | T@lk 22:35, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'll keep trying to lend a hand here! Erich 04:57, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Seasons greeting

gedday all, hope all you northerners are keeping warm and hope all is well. Erich 04:57, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Doctor, are you there?

Geez guys, it's boringly quiet here. I've noticed that the turnover rate of doctors here is fairly high. Has anyone seen User:Kd4ttc lately?

Anyway, please read Talk:Deaf and Talk:Models of deafness and shudder. JFW | T@lk 00:16, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

dude! you're a fanatic!! good on you! I'm not sure if I can cope much more with deafness!! One of my colleagues just pointed me at the Australian Medical Council website - where they have a mock exam. After 50 questions (takes about 20min) you get a break down of your performance.

I gotta confess I was a bit anxious doing the test but was relieved to obtain the giddying ranking of 'satisfactory' (for the record I scored: 39/50 Mastery: 12/15) apparently I guess better than I thought!

go on give it a go and fess up your score! Erich 14:16, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Total Correct: 32/50; Mastery Correct: 12/15; Performance: Satisfactory I did it in 14 minutes, but I plead a whole lotta years since I had to think about old folks and pregnant women. Not one single question about endocrine or metabolic diseases! alteripse 02:50, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

yep it's definitely an exam for the jack of all trades. were you happy that the question on the astmatic kid had a single correct answer? I felt agrieved about getting that one wrong - given the paucity of detail in the question. go on JFW... 'fess up: how'd you go? Erich 13:15, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Total correct 35/50, mastery correct 13/15, performance: satisfactory. JFW | T@lk 00:12, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think I got that one right but I can't remember the choices. alteripse 14:34, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PMID

Template:PMID was unnecessary. The Wiki now recognises PMID codes and automatically creates a link, much like ISBN codes. Please disregard the template and simply use PMID 4957203 (see, no template!) JFW | T@lk 23:31, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

thanks; very useful information! Courtland 2005-01-31 USA ~19:20 EST

geez that is cool! when did they do that? (hey jfd are you going to take the test?? ) Erich 12:50, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Just added pages for PMID and Misplaced Pages:PMID similiar to Misplaced Pages:ISBN. I'm not sure exactly how it works. Petersam 22:56, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Template:PMID is proposed to be deleted - Misplaced Pages:Templates_for_deletion#Template:PMID Petersam 21:18, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Petersam, you're working much too hard :-) Compliments on that awesome job that I was reluctant too take on... JFW | T@lk 21:51, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)


"Neurologic disorders" vs "Neurology"

Hi. While going through the old pages above listed by SimonP, I wondered whether articles on ... arghh... diseases affecting the nervous system should go under what I thought sounded right (and what I started doing) Category:Neurologic disorders or whether, as some have already done, put them in Category:Neurology. I was figuring that "Neurologic disorders" would fit as a subcategory of Category:Diseases but that "Neurology" would not because it's also the study of normal neural tissue function. What's the consensus view here? Alex.tan 05:02, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Diseases should be in both categories. Neurology is the field that deals with them, and neurologic disorders is the pathophysiological category. All autoimmune diseases are in Category:Autoimmune diseases, even though they are also under Category:Rheumatology, Category:Pulmonology etc. JFW | T@lk 22:56, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nephrotoxicity

Hepatotoxicity and neurotoxicity were extant, but today I finally started nephrotoxicity. Could all of you kindly add the drugs you know, and the mechanism? It is still very short. JFW | T@lk 22:56, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On the topic of "Category:Disorders"

this is in regard to the listing of Category:Disorders on the Categories for Deletion page

In the discussion, we have gotten to the point of considering whether a "disorder" is a "disease" or vice versa. One proposal on the table is to delete Category:Disorders (the actual action would be a renaming to a specific disorder type, but that is tantamount to a delete). Another proposal is to keep Category:Disorders and actually place Category:Diseases as a sub-category of it (the reasoning is found in the discussion linked from above). One question is whether something like "growth disorder" as a category can be considered a viable child of "diseases" as a category; if it cannot, then maintaining a "disorders" category is pretty much a requirement.

It would be helpful if one or another of you could step into the discussion and provide some input that might help a decision be made.

Thanks in advance. Courtland 03:51, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)

Automatic tool for creating PubMed citations

In trying to cite my sources, I've found WikiBib very useful. However, that tool requires that you provide all the info (e.g. article title, journal, author, etc.), and I'm a bit too lazy for that. So I created a tool that can generate citations given just a PubMed ID, and I figured someone here might find it useful too. Cheers, David Iberri | Talk 05:56, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Wikiportal: Medicine

Work on the wikiportal Medicine has begun. I have added categories and wikiprojects, for other things your help will be needed. --Eleassar777 21:55, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Categoryectomy

Hey docs, it's very very quiet here. Would all of you mind helping out with obesity? I'm trying to get this article to featured article status in the view of all the media attention on this problem.

Also, I'm tidying up Category:Medicine again. Some unscrupulous individuals think that they can categorise a medical article by slapping this category on it. Quod non. Please help sorting them out if you've got a minute. JFW | T@lk 07:58, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Hey Dudes! just saying hello... nice to drop by and see you two still soldering on! I'm now at a kid's hospital (for 3/12s anyway) and life remains busy. My gasboys project is doing reasonably well and I'm still trying to encourage my colleagues to take an interest in wiki's. best wishes to all Erich 15:54, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

(Looking up from trench) Oh, it's you. Why don't you hop down in here with us and give us a hand instead of playing the tourist? alteripse 17:41, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Infobox

I propose using an infobox on pages for diseases and disorders. Here is a mockup I've come up with: Template:DiseaseDisorder_infobox. An example of how this would look is available here. --Arcadian 00:37, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The way you have designed the template invites a whole host of problems. It presumes that signs, symptoms, diagnosis and therapy are clear-cut. They are not. For example, you stated that gastroenteritis is treated with loperamide. That is generally, but there are too many "yes, but..." situations to blankly put this in the template.
The template contains entries for incidence and prevalence. These numbers are very dependant on population and location (e.g. hepatitis in Southeast Asia), again defying the purpose of a template.
I can only imagine one use for this template, which is linking numerical data, such as the ICD code and DSM IVR classification, as you rightly did. Otherwise, I am firmly opposed to its use on disease-related pages. JFW | T@lk 03:55, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I have revised the template to meet your specs. You can click here to see how it looks. In the long term, I'd hope we could consider putting some of those other categories back in, and I think I'm more optimistic than you are that we can find mutually agreeable sources (for example, we could use the ICD codes for symptoms and signs, and I know there are WHO sources for incidence and prevalence), and that the use of this template could be a useful nudge to the editors on some of the disease pages that are currently disasters. The field I'd argue for most is a Cause field, because I think that will help focus people's attention when they edit pages. But for now, if the only two fields we agree on are ICD and DSM, could we go forward with that, try it for a few months, and then if it goes smoothly, perhaps we could consider gradually expanding it? --Arcadian 04:32, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What if we redesigned it for unequivocal codes & terms such as ICD9, DSM IV, OMIM number, defective gene, defective enzyme, causal organism? Many diseases would have an association with more than 1 item in some of the fields (e.g., more than 1 OMIM number or infectious agent). We could list up to 5 of each, and if more are applicable, the box would say "multiple, see article". I am relatively lukewarm about this because I am realizing that most of the disease articles I have written have multiple genes or enzymes involved. OK forget it. I do agree entirely with you that there is no value to the boxes as offered with a few arbitrary signs and symptoms. Nice try by Arcadian; give him credit for effort anyway. alteripse 04:28, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • A thought in response to Alteripse's comments: perhaps we could address your concerns by putting fields in for "Parent" and "Children". For many of the diseases where there is ambiguity about the cause (for example, Gastroenteritis) we could use that as a consistent interface to drill down or drill up and resolve ambiguity. --Arcadian 04:41, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Are parent and children some type of technical database terms describing a hierarchy? Explain a little what you mean? alteripse 05:00, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • For example, if there was a template on the Anemia page, because the causative agent is dependent upon the type, we wouldn't list the cause on that page, but instead say 'see children'. In the children section of the template, we would have links to the kinds of anemia, like Iron deficiency anemia or Megaloblastic anemia. Then, on those pages, the 'parent' field would have Anemia. Because the different kids of anemia present in similar ways, we could include the signs and symptoms on that parent page. --Arcadian 05:13, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Uh, in the present form it seems Leukemia has a DSM code (quod non, unless they have started coding the third axis now). I support Alteripse's idea to link other "discrete" values such as OMIM numbers. In theory MeSH headers could also be linked.
Without wanting to sound patronising, I think Arcadian is being too optimistic about medicine being systematic. What is considered a "cause" for a disease is often dependant on numerous risk factors. I would have serious misgivings about a definite "cause" being stamped on every medical article; again it smacks of oversimplification.
As for "parent" and "child", this is indeed confusing. Even iron deficiency has multiple unrelated causes. Let's just not do this. The category system is presently in use to classify diseases by the type (autoimmune, malignant, infectious) and by the specialism that deals with them. That should be sufficient. JFW | T@lk 05:17, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Per the above, I've added MeSH and OMIM. --Arcadian 11:23, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Haven't heard any feedback for a while -- any other changes that people want to the template before I start putting it on some of the pages? --Arcadian 19:35, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

We are more dubious than ungrateful and don't want you to waste your efforts if we end up not being able to use the boxes without introducing errors. Why don't you put a couple of your proposed boxes on a couple of hematology or endocrinology articles (look at the ones JFW and I have been working on) and let us see if they might be applicable before you do a whole lot? alteripse 19:42, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't want to put more time into building the disease infoboxes if JFW is just going to revert them again as he did earlier this week, so I'd rather find out beforehand if they're okay before I invest the time. When he performed his reversions, he asked that I come to this page and get a consensus before proceeding, so that's what I'm doing here. To help facilitate consensus, I have removed everything but ICD from the initial Template:DiseaseDisorder_infobox. --Arcadian 20:42, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Arcadian, I apologise for appearing heavy-handed, but there were big problems with the box, and on every page I found a reason why the box would not be appropriate. You've spent a lot of time on this, and I don't want to create the impression that us grumpy doctors are monopolising on medical articles (which I do occasionally tend to do).
ICD codes should apply to all diseases, while DSM-IVR or OMIM will not. I do warmly support your move to link ICD codes, which is probably the best classification of diseases we have at the moment. JFW | T@lk 22:17, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cancer

I'm trying to bring cancer to featured article status. Could you all have a look and improve what is necessary? JFW | T@lk 09:23, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nice article! I contributed a bit more. alteripse 13:36, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hypoglycemia

I just "completed" (nothing is ever complete here) a major rewrite of a previously really crappy article and would be grateful for medical peer review of hypoglycemia. I am working on diabetic hypoglycemia and congenital hyperinsulinism. thanks alteripse 04:24, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Newbie

Being new to wiki and having an intested in medicine, I was delighted to see that this project a) existed and b) was reasonably active. I am a SHO in general medicine from Scotland and will be attempting to add my two-penneth to some articles, review stubs and generally help out. There seems to be a lot of activity from a select few. I hope that to be of use and also hope that you will help me in this new adventure. I'll be attempting to coerse some of my colleagues to get involved. If there is somewhere particular to start, mention it - if not I'll just take a look through the top priority page and see what the best use of my time will be. drjermy 14:25, 13 July 2005 (BST)

Find your niche and hack away, I say. It's more about having fun. Tips from this old hand: (1) Use good references, (2) cover the main things, (3) remain systematic. JFW | T@lk 15:47, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Preclinical medicine/medical science project

Hi all, I am PhatRita, a medical student. I have been following this project recently with interest. I think the same format and organistion could be applied with great effect to subjects on preclinical medicine such as human anatomy and physiology. The pages there are a mess. They face several problems which include:

  • lack of agreement on whether to use lay or professional terms such as "superior" vs "above"
  • lack of organisation on materials - redirections problems such as upper limb to arm (which is anatomically incorrect) and so on.
  • lack of material full stop. There is so much to expand on. Many entries, especially anatomy, are one sentence and are stubs.
  • lack of clinical relevance. Pages have no links to clinically important subjects, eg wrist and carpal tunnel syndrome
  • some information is misleading, perhaps peer reviewing could help?
  • many pages are both animal and human together. It makes pages sometimes unreadable and sometimes complex and misleading.

Just take a look at the human physiology page to see what I mean.

The project could provide:

  • a central organisation
  • highlight and attract more involvement
  • improve the quality and linking to clinically relevant subjects
  • peer reviewing could further help this
  • separation of human medical science as a stand alone subject, which is important clinically.

What do you think? Please mail me with suggestions and interest thanks

PhatRita 12:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Although lacking time myself, I warmly support PhatRita in this quest. Basic science is still immensely poorly covered, and organisation is sorely lacking. The problem lies partially at the rather unglamorous character of basic anatomy, however important to any surgeon (or even for the sake of science). I was utterly shocked that I had to start mediastinum almost four years after Misplaced Pages was started. JFW | T@lk 00:23, 25 July 2005 (UTC)


I have started the Preclinical medicine page. If you are interested in helping in any way, please have a look! PhatRita 00:08, 27 July 2005 (UTC)


Sure, welcome, and have at it! When it's really bad, you can really make it better. I've been splitting my toil between clinical and a few biochemistry/physiology topics, as well as lounging about the ref desk. alteripse 00:34, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

First of all, welcome, PhatRita! I agree with the issues you have raised. Unfortunately, medical students and doctors tend to be extremely busy which is part of the reason why these articles are not in top shape, I suspect. Now that I'm an intern, I've become busier than I ever was, and I've had to severely cut back my time on Misplaced Pages (I haven't even listed myself as a member of this WikiProject, which I probably should do). Recently I've been focusing on new articles, picking medical ones from Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles, varying somewhat between basic science and clinical articles (my recent ones have been Chromoblastomycosis, Mastoiditis, Transaminase, Soleus muscle, and Acrocyanosis). I agree with JDW about the difficulty in writing anatomy articles—I put everything I could think of in Soleus muscle and it was a stretch at that. I've been collecting links to articles that need work but my list grows faster than I can attack it. I don't know how many people are active here, but perhaps we could consider some type of collaboration of the fortnight or something if there are enough. Or at least an internal peer review—I know I wouldn't mind others in the medical profession (or about to enter!) taking a look at the articles I write. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:34, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
In fact, the more I think about it, I like the idea of having a weekly or fortnightly collaboration. Would anyone else be interested? Of course there would be no obligation to contribute, but if we had several people poke their heads in it could really help. There are many medical articles that really should be a lot better than they are—like SIRS for instance. I wouldn't mind setting up and maintaing the collaboration page. Maybe we could alternate between clinical and pre-clinical topics. Laypeople would also be welcome, especially to ensure that the articles are understandable. Thoughts? — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:28, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
Hi all again, thanks for your comments and suggestions. I think Knowledge Seeker's idea of a COTW is a good idea, just to get the process of improving the pages off the ground. Maybe sometime down the road we can think about expanding it into a more ambitious project if needs be. If possible we could program a new tag like COTW Medicine or something, to stick on nominees. In fact, why not stamp a seal like "improved with the COTW medicine" and maybe that will attract more support.
Whenever I write about a topic on anatomy or other basic sciences, I always forget an important point or maybe a certain object has a different name, eg sternal angle/Louis etc. Peer reviewing as part of the collaboration is very useful.
If you could make a page for this purpose, I'll be happy to help you maintain and improve. Are there any interested people for the first collaboration?
PhatRita 12:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
I started it at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Clinical medicine/MCOTF (or use shortcut WP:MCOTF). PhatRita and anyone who is interested, please head over to the talk page to help plan the details (or just to let us know you are interested in participating, even if infrequently). Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 23:31, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

I warmly greet these ideas and will surely contribute sooner rather than later. This fortnight collaboration should also be mentioned at the Misplaced Pages:Wikiportal/Medicine.

As there was talk about anatomy, I would specifically like to point out that it would be very appreciated if Latin redirects were created to the relevant topics. The same could possibly apply also to other topics. You know, it is often quite difficult for us non-native English medicine students to figure out English names. --Eleassar my talk 11:33, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Immunosuppressive drug

I think the articles immunosuppression and immunosuppressive drug should be merged into a new one called "immunosuppressive therapy" (currently a redirect) or perhaps even simply to "immunosuppression" (but I'm afraid it wouldn't be enough balanced then). Otherwise "immunosuppression" won't develop. Any thoughts? --Eleassar my talk 11:33, 27 July 2005 (UTC)


Improvement Drive

The article H5N1 has been listed to be improved on Misplaced Pages:This week's improvement drive. You can add your vote there if you would like to support the article.--Fenice 06:42, 4 August 2005 (UTC)Fenice 06:29, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Redirect Maskun to Achromatopsia?

Achromatopsia currently redirects to Maskun, however, I was wondering if anyone would mind if I switched the redirect in the other direction. In Google, "Achromatopsia" gets about 20,700 hits and "Maskun" gets about 20,500 (but the vast majority appear to be Icelandic webpages or things unrelated to abnormal cone function). In PubMed, "Achromatopsia" gets 2,854 hits whereas "Maskun" gets only 1 (one). Please let me know if there are objections to switching the redirect. Edwardian 05:09, 5 August 2005 (UTC)


Traumatology

Hi, I might be writing this in the wrong place, completely new @ WP and haven't really got a hold of it yet. I'm a doctor specializing in Intensive Care/Disaster medicine with special interest in Trauma Surgery. Therefor, naturally, I'd like to contribute in these specific areas. Looking at the traumatology page, there is a chapter on some half New age, half alternative medicine thing, could you please take a look at this? I really don't know how to split an article but feel strongly that that part should not be there! Also, is this the place to discuss all issues/questions in the WP medical community? Lastly (sorry for grouping question), where can I read about the legal implications of what I might write here @ WP?--Johan M 08:13, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

You are in the right place. I deleted the traumatology New age nonsense (see article/discussion for reasons). I've put my thoughts on legal issues on your discussion page User talk:Johan Malmgren -David Ruben 12:54, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help and the information! After finishing working on my new apartment I will take a big bite at rewriting the traumatology page!--Johan M 18:19, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Are you expecting any practical examples? :-) JFW | T@lk 22:57, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Of course, considering where my thumbs are placed, I expect to put up some nice pictures of selfinflicted injuries, maybe a table of what kind of injuries could be associated to what tools!? :-) --Johan M 01:13, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Heh. JFW | T@lk 01:33, 7 August 2005 (UTC)