Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Clinical medicine/Archive 4

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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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia, 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format for a textbook, especially when you aim to keep things up-to-date (my textbooks from the late 1990s are already outdated!)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, [medlogs] and [hubmed] come in handy. I'm a bit confused on what Wikiprojects imply, is mine one or is it a strictly defined entity in Wikipedia? 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 Wikipedia 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 [1] 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 Wikipedia: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 [[Category:Intensive care medicine]] 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 [[:Category:Hematology]] 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 Wikipedia: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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia... 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 Wikipedia 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) Archive: 1 2 3 4

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.


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.


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 Klüver-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)

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