Talk:William Osler

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I think it would be a mistake to merge these two categories. At the same time the entry on the Osler residency needs to be re-written since at present its essentially just an account of Osler's life. The residency has thrived for almost 100 years after his death and produced countless leaders in American medicine and yet 99% of the Wikipedia entry focuses on rather mundane aspects of Osler's life, most of which predated the residency.

  • Support. The article focusses on Osler's life. If the residency is important, it would be better to add a section in his biography.--Savisha 17:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support merging these two pages. Osler's advocacy of medical residency - as part of his philosophy of medical education and the need to listen to the patient - is an aspect of Osler's professional life and thus its well into a biographical article. David

Tecumseh

another source lists his birthplace as tecumseh, ontario.Toyokuni3 (talk) 05:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Requested review

Thanks to Toyokuni3 for the opportunity to read this article! Great work so far. Some advice:

  • The most important thing I see that the article needs is more references, especially inline citations for specific facts. My preference is to see at least one reference per paragraph (when I see one for the first or last sentence of a paragraph I assume the ref is endorsing the whole paragraph, so that's worth paying attention to). But at the least, every fact with a statistic, potentially controversial material, and all quotations need a reference.
  • I think the lead should be expanded, see WP:LEAD for good ideas on how to improve it. It should be able to act as a summary that could be a stand-alone article. One trick that makes it easier for me is to include something from each section, kind of pull out the most important things from each one.
  • Also, the lead should not mention things that aren't discussed in the rest of the article, so maybe there should either be some further explanation of his opinion of Avicenna or that should be removed.
  • I would split the biography section, which is quite long, into subsections. Maybe "Early life", "Carreer", "Positions", "Contributions to medicine"... that type of thing.
  • It's good to have full references rather than just hyperlinks. With articles in medical journals, it's super easy because of this amazing tool: just enter the pubmed ID (do a pubmed search for the article title or whatnot, and enter the PMID number found at the bottom of the abstract into the search bar. The tool creates a ref for you, check to make sure it's correct).
  • I think the biography section could use some reorganizing to group similar concepts. I bet introducing subheaders would help with that. For example, you can put all the material on his philosophies about teaching and practicing medicine under the same subheader. Otherwise, group them together into a paragraph or set of consecutive paragraphs if there's not enough for a subsection.
  • Even though it fits with the theme of libraries and books, the sentence "Sir William and Lady Osler's ashes now rest in a niche within the Osler Library, surrounded by his beloved books" is a little disconcerting in the middle of that paragraph. Also, I think "surrounded by his beloved books" sounds a little too much like commentary (articles should only state facts, not offer commentary on them). Also, I think the next sentence sounds introductory and should go at the start of that paragraph.
  • "Osler was a true Renaissance man" is another statement that sounds like commentary. I think this article may be a little problematic with WP:NPOV by being too sympathetic. Whenever an opinion is offered, it needs to be attributed to someone. For example, instead of "his public speaking and writing were both done in a clear, lucid style", you could say "so-and-so praised his oration and writing, calling it clear and lucid" or something. With a citation.
  • Use en dashes (–) rather than hyphens (-) for number ranges per WP:DASH.
  • Most adverbs ending in -ly don't need hyphens when used with another word to modify a single word (unless I'm reading hyphen wrong.
  • The sentence Throughout his life Osler was a great admirer of the 17th century physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne doesn't really fit in the article by itself, and it doesn't fit with the other sentence in that paragraph. I'd take it out entirely unless you can expand it to explain the significance, perhaps in a paragraph about his philosophies on the practice of medicine.
  • I think the some of the medical terminology in the "eponyms" section could be simplified so lay readers can understand it.

The most important things are to add inline citations, especially for the quotations, and to go over the article to eliminate the too-sympathetic tone. I hope these thoughts are helpful! Definitely give me a heads up if I can offer any clarification or help. I'm glad to help work on the article if you want. Just drop a note on my talk page. delldot on a public computer talk 02:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DavidReilly deleted references, request, fixes, adds. Your turn

User DavidReilly deleted my references, corrections, additions, and 4 times request for inline references (I don't know how long present request will stay). I agree with other users on this Talk page that more (inline) references are required.

Plagiarism is paragraphs copied word for word without crediting, as is at present from: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/about/history/history5.html

If Health Center entry should be called System, then change that, not link. Let reader learn more about Brampton area service. May be old name or interchangeable; url says "hc", so does article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Osler_Health_Centre http://www.williamoslerhc.on.ca/body.cfm?id=145

To ignore Osler's contribution to Canada and Britain in lead is biased. To delete Baltimore Maryland USA for John Hopkins ignores readers outside USA. I moved information from lead to more relevant place; I did not delete. Other Wiki entries do not put other group member names in lead, when not his only friends or only contribution. Osler was knighted in Britain, not USA, was he not? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Ross http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon

Schools and hospitals are not empty "Buildings" whose owners and tenants change. They are "Institutions" that employ people, provide full-time occupations for permanent occupants and serve their communities. I tried to correct, add links, references, all undone.

Quote from "one student" is unverified. Too many more mean actions to detail here.

Not in keeping with Wiki pillars. I will not play childish tug of war in the Season of Good Will. Somebody else can try. Tsk Tsk. AnEyeSpy (talk) 00:53, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Correct pronunciation of Osler?

In my training as a physician and since, I frequently heard Osler's name invoked, and invariably pronounced OH-sler. A psychologist friend who knows him from the training literature and had been pronouncing it AH-sler asked me if that is correct. So I came here to prove my point but the IPA suggestion is actually AH-sler. Can anyone tell me which is correct? Natkuhn (talk) 12:33, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I visited the Osler Library in Montreal. The staff pronounce it "Oz-ler". --Zefr (talk) 13:45, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Such questions are often unanswerable. There's only one pronunciation that is definitive and that is how Osler himself pronounced it, since it is his name. We have a few examples of where these questions can be answered because there are recordings of the person using their own name, but often over time the pronunciation (even by direct descendants) will probably corrupt into something more phonetic in each particular local context. Even where people do know the "correct way", they will often adapt to the way most likely to make them understood in their local context in order to communicate efficiently. So you can call him whatever you like really :-) Kerry (talk) 23:55, 31 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Excessive Claims for Originality

The article currently claims that Osler was the founder of residency training for medical specialists and the first to take medical students out of the lecture hall for bedside instruction.

The first claim may be true for the United States, but in France the position of Interne des hôpitaux de Paris was a four year training programme accessed through a competitive examination which commenced in 1802. Similarly named schemes followed in other cities until a national scheme was set up two centuries later. Details can be found on the French WikiPedia. (The French article about Osler is just a translation of the English one.)

The second claim is clearly wrong: bedside teaching was integral to the old apprenticeship model of medical training and was also part of the set up at the London teaching hospitals well before Osler's time. The credit for adding bedside teaching to the university teaching of medicine is usually given to Herman Boerhaave (1668 - 1738) at the University of Leiden. His pupils set up the medical faculty of the University of Edinburgh in 1726: their students would have brought the practice to the medical schools they founded in the United States in the 18th century.

However clinical teaching may not have continued in the proprietary MD mills of the 19th century USA where it was enough to repeat attendance at a single course of lectures over two years. Osler would have observed contemporary British and European practice during the extended study tour he undertook after graduating in Canada. NRPanikker (talk) 11:46, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ANOTHER controversy; was Osler racist? Canadian Medical Association Journal

Sir William Osler, the father of modern medicine, made openly racist statements — and it’s time to stop celebrating him, medical journal article says Mon., Nov. 9, 2020 

    “I hate Latin Americans,” and “What are we to do when the yellow and brown men begin to swarm over” to Canada, which he considered “a White man’s country.”
    The CMAJ article states that a biographer modified a transcription of an Osler letter, replacing his use of the word “hate” for Latin Americans with “don’t care for.” The statement was ultimately not included in the 1926 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of the doctor. https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2020/11/09/sir-william-osler-the-father-of-modern-medicine-made-openly-racist-statements-and-its-time-to-stop-celebrating-him-medical-journal-article-says.html

Peter K Burian (talk) 15:17, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

William Osler: saint in a “White man’s dominion” Nav Persaud, Heather Butts and Philip Berger CMAJ November 09, 2020 

   We examine Osler’s treatment of racialized people, and we contrast his lionization with the meagre recognition of his contemporaries who fought racism inside and outside the medical profession. This article has been peer reviewed.  https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/45/E1414

Peter K Burian (talk) 15:20, 10 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]



The racist incidents have been publicly documented for a substantial period of time. The "white man's country" speech was discussed in a 1997 Canadian Medical Association Journal article:

https://www.cmaj.ca/content/156/11/1549?ijkey=1551fac1fbccf627cfb86e14deecc7eebe14ac8f&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

Medical students at McGill passed a motion in 2019 that raised concerns about racist incidents:

http://www.mcgillmed.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Motion-regarding-the-eponyms-of-Sir-William-Osler-2019.pdf

The Canadian Medical Association Journal article about Osler was published in November of 2020:

https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/45/E1414

The Canadian Medical Association Journal article about Osler received a number of responses about the meaning of the incidents, but the responses did not raise questions about whether the incidents occured.

https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/45/E1414/tab-e-letters

Another prespecitve is provided in this November 2020 article, and the article also accepts that the racist incidents happened:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7785166/#CIT0020

Multiple sources have descrbed these racist incidents over years. So there does not seem to be much question about whether these incidents occured.

NavPersaud (talk) 17:36, 20 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It does not surprise me in the least that a physician brought up in the Victorian Age expressed racist sentiments. He flourished during the peak era of scientific racism, which was only discredited by the events of the Second World War. Charles Darwin expressed positively genocidal views about race, which his post-war biographers have had to filter out. It can be disappointing to meet your hero in real life: how much more would it be to travel back in time? Looking at his joke about chloroforming old men, he was fortunate to die before bien-pensants began to talk about sterilizing certain groups of people and "lethal chambers" for "imbeciles." NRPanikker (talk) 22:14, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]


I believe this is commentary and should be removed: "Osler held a number of views that were not atypical for a physician of his generation, but were politically controversial even at that time." The rest of the section about racism discusses what Osler did and provides citations; the section is about what he did and not about his opinions. While some may have the opinion that Osler's views were "not atypical" others have a different view, and it most accords with the Wikipedia guidelines to stick to what Osler said and did and avoid rehearsing a debate about whether what he did was "atypical". Readers can decide what they think of Osler's actions. Please see the specific guidance provided here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view

199.71.174.200 (talk) 17:45, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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