Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 77

From WikiProjectMed
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Archive 70 ← Archive 75 Archive 76 Archive 77 Archive 78 Archive 79 Archive 80

Wound photos?

There's a new user who has uploaded a couple of photos which are described as being of diabetic ulcers pre- and post-treatment. To me, they look somewhat unreal, but I'll admit to never having closely examined a diabetic ulcer. Could someone more experienced give their opinion? DS (talk) 20:53, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Meh, seems fairly plausible to me, although most images of diabetic ulcers I can find look like craters without granulation tissue (the rosa bits) around them.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:27, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
  • No way to confirm etiology if not part of a peer-reviewed report. The wound in the photo is definitely not typical, and therefore provides no instructional value (unless, again, associated with a peer-reviewed report that clarifies the instructive aspect(s)). — soupvector (talk) 03:33, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
Would you then suggest renaming the images? If so, to what? DS (talk) 01:45, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
I don't know the rules on evidence for an image name. Accurate names would include "leg wound" and "healed leg wound". — soupvector (talk) 04:21, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
The rules are that we assume that the description is accurate. Commons doesn't really care about verifiability. On the Wikipedia side, what matters is that the image looks like the thing in question (e.g., is visually similar to images shown in textbooks on this subject). Even if we later prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that these are photos of alien faces that just happen to look like leg wounds, they are still useful as images of leg wounds.
For this type of image, it's ideal to have images that are reasonably typical. Determining whether the image is reasonably typical is done by knowledgeable editors discussing the question and coming to a consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:42, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying - very helpful. I've commented over there, which seems the best place to have that discussion. — soupvector (talk) 14:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
I would vigorously dispute WhatamIdoing's hardline "the truth doesn't matter, as long as it looks right" declaration. Some editors – including me – really do care about image provenance. (Commons can do whatever the hell it wants, but we don't have to take their nonsense at face value.) We don't take the word of random uploaders for medical content. It really does matter if an image is actually a diabetic ulcer, or
  • a different sort of wound that coincidentally looks similar to a diabetic ulcer, or
  • an imitation of a diabetic ulcer drawn on with make-up, or
  • a simulation of an ulcer created with a computer graphics program, or
  • a photo of an alien that bears an uncanny resemblance to an ulcer.
We should never describe or misrepresent any of the bulleted items in the list as a diabetic leg ulcer in our articles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:14, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Excellent points here at WPMED for general consideration, and I hope some folks will go over to the image (particularly the "non healing" one) and comment on whether it's typical and well-supported. It's unfortunate that such comments aren't more prominent, since someone searching Commons might not notice the controversy - are there templates that could highlight the concerns on the image page? The paired image (purportedly of the result of Ayurvedic treatment) is potentially even more problematic, since it strongly implies unsupported claims of efficacy for unspecified treatment (when the earlier ulcer might have progressed to this degree of healing with nothing more than supportive care, since it was well-granulated). Note the uploader's user page specifically articulates their point of view, i.e. that Ayurvedic is an important adjunct to modern medicine - and uses these images in support. — soupvector (talk) 17:14, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
I think what WhatamIdoing means is that Commons only concerns itself whether the image can plausibly be a diabetic ulcer—and we can not conclusively say it isn't. The patient has quite typical diabetic dermopathy, so it is highly likely that he/she has diabetes. That said the ulceration really isn't typical, nor can it be said that it is likely caused by diabetes, but its more likely some other form of ulcer that healed poorly following diabetes. A poorly healed surgery scar on a diabetic patient is impacted negatively by the conditions, but it isn't as far as I understand classified as a diabetic ulcer. CFCF 💌 📧 18:18, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Actually, what I mean is "I have read and understood the guideline at WP:PERTINENCE" as well as "I have seen a dispute with someone who tried to use a lack of provenance to remove micrographs of viruses whose existence he personally didn't believe in". Like Hep C.
Individual editors are perfectly welcome to use WP:Editorial discretion to omit an image whose inclusion might not have a desirable educational effect, or to give it a suitable caption. (Consider the critical difference between "Poor control of diabetes can result in leg ulcers like this one" and "This image shows an ulcer caused by diabetes".) But we actually do not have a rule that requires any proof of provenance before those can images be used. You don't have to do this for any pictures: not places, not BLPs, not medical conditions. Images exist to illustrate what can't be described as completely in words. They do not exist to prove that something exists, or even to prove that this particular image is actually the thing in question. They exist solely as illustrations of content that ought to be present and sourced in the text. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:01, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

How about "open ulcer on leg" and "leg with ulceration scars" ? DS (talk) 20:21, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Sure Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:52, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
I have invited the uploader to comment here.
I am disconcerted by WAID's statement: "Even if we later prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that these are photos of alien faces that just happen to look like leg wounds, they are still useful as images of leg wounds." In my opinion, an image's caption/description should always (aim to) accurately describe what it is. A caption should not state "Image of a leg wound" if it is not actually an image of a leg wound.
I am further dismayed by WAID's sophistry in the statement: "Consider the critical difference between "Poor control of diabetes can result in leg ulcers like this one" and "This image shows an ulcer caused by diabetes"." The former caption certainly implies that the image shows an ulcer caused by diabetes, while the latter caption explicitly states it. Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:06, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
Do you think that this is a dandelion? The uploader says it's not, but there's no reliable source in which an expert says you're wrong and the uploader is correct.
The purpose of an image is to illustrate the nearby sentences and paragraphs. The caption needs to explain the image's relevance to the (already sourced) text. This goal can sometimes be achieved without directly describing the contents of the image. That approach is appropriate when you don't want to commit to declaring that the uploader's description of the image is unquestionably accurate.
The other approach is to prohibit volunteers from uploading or using images that don't come with a proper reliable source that says the contents of the image have been correctly identified by the uploader. The community has chosen the moderate course of trusting uploaders to describe their images to the best of their ability, and trusting editors to present images as illustrating sourced facts, rather than trying to use the images themselves as reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
You have avoided responding to my specific points.
"This goal can sometimes be achieved without directly describing the contents of the image." WP:Caption is the relevant guideline. Criterion 1 states "A good caption... clearly identifies the subject of the picture, without detailing the obvious."
"That approach is appropriate when you don't want to commit to declaring that the uploader's description of the image is unquestionably accurate." A description is rarely "unquestionably accurate". (Let's avoid a philosophical discussion of Wittgenstein's Tractatus.) We assume good faith on the part of the uploader that he/she has made a genuine attempt to describe the image accurately. If a reader/editor has doubt about the accuracy of the description, he/she should contact the uploader and seek other opinions from uninvolved editors to achieve a consensus. If an editor wants to use the image in an article but has doubt about its accuracy, it is certainly not appropriate to use devious wording to avoid acknowledgement of the uploader's description. Axl ¤ [Talk] 13:35, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
How would you resolve a dispute, then? Let's use the flower as an example. You say it's not a dandelion; I say it is. I demand that you not write a caption that says "A close up of a cat's ear bloom, showing the stamens", because I believe that it's actually a dandelion. The actual need in the article is to show that a cat's ear has lots of spindly little stamens. What's your proposal to resolve the dispute? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
I refer you to my previous statement: "If a reader/editor has doubt about the accuracy of the description, he/she should contact the uploader and seek other opinions from uninvolved editors to achieve a consensus." Axl ¤ [Talk] 16:26, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
And if the uploader is non-responsive or knows nothing about the picture beyond what the description page says (which is very common), and if uninvolved editors don't choose to become involved (a not entirely unusual fate of discussions), or if they simply don't know any better than you and I do, or if they ask you what the general rule is in such cases – then what?
My comments (and the guideline) are addressed to this "then what?" situation: Here's what we usually do, when all else fails. Does your recommendation for that situation actually differ? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:22, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
You are now derailing the discussion to avoid further scrutiny of your original comments.
"My comments... are addressed to this "then what?" situation." No, they aren't. Your comments represent a unilateral opinion by a single editor to overrule and bypass the description from the uploader.
In this thread, everyone apart from you has made sensible comments. It is clear that you will not be moved by my ongoing arguments. Therefore I am not going to respond again. I leave other readers to decide the merits (or otherwise) of our arguments. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:04, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
[1][2] have not been used in any article, yet...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:00, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Draft:Cardiac Research Institute at Masonic Medical Research Laboratory

Hello medical experts. This old draft has a lot of information and references, but the references aren't linked on line. From the titles I suspect that they are research articles put out by the Institute, rather than articles about the Institute. I thought of redirecting it to the article about the Masonic Medical Research Laboratory, but there isn't one. Any opinions as to what should be done with this draft?—Anne Delong (talk) 15:40, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Oops, I just realized that I have reported this here already when it was under a different title. (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 44#Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Cardiac Research Institute at Masonic Medical Research Laboratory. It seems that no one has worked on it since.—Anne Delong (talk) 15:45, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
[3][4] found some of the links, however the Research programs section might need some trimming before it gets referenced...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:56, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Definition for the lead of the Child abuse article

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Child abuse#Lead section: WHO definition of child maltreatment. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:18, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


give opinion(gave mine/WHO definition)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 06:22, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Proposed WMF board resolution on the unreliability of Wikipedia

I've asked the WMF board of trustees to pass a resolution (a) acknowledging that Wikipedia (among other WMF properties) is not reliable and (b) encouraging the WMF to support initiatives aimed at improving the reliability of Wikipedia (and other WMF properties).

Please have your say here. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:51, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes Wikipedia is not reliable. There however is not any completely reliable source out there. We have the Oxford University Press who copied from our article on Ebola per here and while doing so changed the references so they no longer supported the content that was copied from us.
Another one of my favorite examples is a textbook produced by the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians which contains a number of drug doses out by a factor of ten. If I was to follow it blindly I would kill people. I have corrected my copy but cannot correct others.
I of course fully support prioritizing efforts to make Wikipedia's medical content more reliable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:23, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes. Perfection only exists in mathematics. But we can strive. I'd like to see the WMF Board a bit more vocal on the issue of our unreliability. I don't expect them to actually do anything but set the tone. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:52, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Script for rating medical articles?

We've had a query on wikimedia medicine-l from a medical editor, very active in the Arabic Wikipedia community. I'll copy it here.

I'm trying to find a script that makes it easy to insert assessment tags into (medical) articles. The one I have found was Kephir's rater, but it's more general-purpose and multi-functional in a way that makes it difficult to localize into the Arabic Wikipedia.

Any other suggested script?

I've posted this at Village pump (technical) and pointed the editor there, so if you have any ideas, please respond there. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:57, 4 February 2016 (UTC)


Wellcome Library recruiting a Wikimedian in Residence

The Wellcome Library, which has collections on the history of medicine, is currently looking for a Wikimedian in Residence. The deadline 12th February and you can find more details in the Library's blog post: http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2016/01/wikimedian-in-residence-at-the-wellcome-library/

Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 10:48, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

This is a paid (£15,000/US $22,000) contract job for 6 to 12 months for the Wellcome Library, which is in London. Richard, does this position require living in/near London? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: Being near London would be useful as ideally it would involve working on site at the Library. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 11:11, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, Richard. The difference between "come visit London a couple of times" and "We expect you physically at the library (nearly) every weekday for 6 to 12 months" is going to make a difference in the size of your applicant pool, and it's not clear in the job posting which one is preferred and/or required. The latter largely restricts the applicant pool to people who can legally live in the UK (and afford to live in London on that amount of money). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:29, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
I think we have a few decent candidates in the area and I wish them luck. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:43, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

RfC for how to define child abuse in the lead of the Child abuse article

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Child abuse#RfC: Should the lead sentence use a broader definition of child abuse?. A WP:Permalink is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:59, 3 February 2016 (UTC)


more opinions(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:20, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Deleting blocks of content / simplification

Wondering if people can comment here [5] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:32, 5 February 2016 (UTC)


Blausen images

BruceBlaus is back again - see Special:Contributions/BruceBlaus. (see old discussion here, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_39#Blausen_Medical_donation). The user is posting in articles lots of images they have donated with a caption that says "This image was donated by Blausen Medical"

Are we OK with that? I think not. I think a donation where you claim credit over and over is not a donation but rather WP:PROMO.... it is too bad. Jytdog (talk) 03:09, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Where the image is actually wanted, suggest remove the caption reference to blausen is appropriate. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 03:25, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
I have thanked them for donating and simply trimmed the "This image was donated by Blausen Medical" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:59, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks! I did the rest. All clean as of now. Jytdog (talk) 05:29, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:11, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
I'd like to note that I removed some of these yesterday, namely neuroscience-related ones in which the image itself was uninformative and served only as an excuse for the caption to link to a video hosted on an external site. In my understanding Wikipedia policy is that in situations like this we should have an EL (in the EL section), not a direct link from the body of the article. Looie496 (talk) 15:39, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Looie496 What you say is the norm. For Khan Academy, many editors agreed with their WP:Smart campaign that external links to videos could be allowed in the body of articles. I am unsure. I think many people are unsure. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:20, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
You can use {{External media}} for this sort of thing. It's meant to be used sparingly, and some things to consider are listed on the /doc page for the template. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:14, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
With respect to external links to video my position is we should either make an exception and allowed CC BY SA NC video (no other exceptions) or we should convince them to release them under a CC BY SA license. External links are the worst of both worlds. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:49, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
My position is basically that we should do what best serves our readers. I don't think the Blausen approach serves our readers very well, because the way the links are added is confusing and messes up the article structure, and the videos are mostly not very informative. But I don't have any problem adding external links to media if the media will substantially help readers understand the topic better. Looie496 (talk) 15:36, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
convince to release them under a CC BY SA license would be better...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:43, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Can you give me a dif regarding how the Blausen links are added? They have been added in a few ways. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:35, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Electromagnetic therapy

Hello. There are two pages here in en wp: Electromagnetic therapy (alternative medicine) and Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy, not alternative medicine in the opposite way. As you know is there any difference between them? Do you know relevant references about Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy efficacy? Thanks. Regards--Pierpao (talk) 17:14, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

review [7] (for reference) and have looked Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy,--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:33, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks a lot Ozzie10aaaa --Pierpao (talk) 20:32, 27 January 2016 (UTC)


An interesting point of MEDRS interpretation

I am not participating in another forum for the e-cig warriors to push their various POVs, and I am not going to be responsible for starting a thread where that happens. It is tedious and unproductive. Jytdog (talk) 15:04, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

So ... The health authority in the UK, the Public Health England, came out with a statement taking a stance on a controversial public health issue. The editorial board of The Lancet, which you all know is a prestigious journal based in the UK, came out with an editorial - by the editorial board and signed "The Lancet" - criticizing the basis for that stance. The PHE statement of course is a very solid MEDRS secondary source originating from a "major health organization." It is exactly what we intend by that phrase.

Here is the debate - some editors are arguing to include content based on the Lancet editorial as an equally strong MEDRS source, others are saying that our article should not include content based on the editorial at all, giving this editorial the status we ascribe to editorials in MEDRS - namely primary and weak - and they want to follow the principle in MEDRS that we don't undermine content based on a strong secondary source with content based on a weaker primary one, and exclude it.

In my view neither stance is reasonable in this case; the editorial is not as strong a source as the PHE source - PHE is exactly what we mean by "major health organizations" and the Lancet as an institution is not - but this is not your common editorial signed by Dr Ima GeniusWIthaStrongOpinion; it is a significant voice and should be included in the article as such (but less WEIGHT than the content based on the PHE report. I have asked the embattled editors not to comment here so that uninvolved but MEDRS-savvy editors can comment.

Which of the three positions do you find most reasonable? Or maybe you have other ideas. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 07:10, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Just a correction in the above: The "statement" from PHE is a formal report on e-cigarettes(their second)[8], and thus corresponds to a secondary review, according to WP:MEDRS. And since the Lancet editorial (no matter how much weight it has) is a primary source per WP:MEDRS. Then what is being argued for, is that a primary source can be used to debunk a secondary source - which is according to WP:MEDPRI is a no-go.
As for the controversial nature of the report - it is not more controversial (within the UK) that 13 health organizations have undersigned it with a joint position statement.[9] --Kim D. Petersen 09:25, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
What Jytdog says sounds reasonable: include both but ensure the Lancet editorial is identified as a lesser, dissenting view. Alexbrn (talk) 11:58, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Putting all medical articles in a category

Our primary pageview tool does not include mobile data.[10]

This tool does collect monthly pageview data[11] based on a category.

Therefore I would like to add all medical articles to a category called Category:WPMED by which will be made hidden.

Basically the bot will check to see if the template {{WPMED}} or {{WikiProject Medicine}} exists on the talk page and if yes than will tag the bottom.

Thoughts or concerns? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:14, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

seems like a good idea--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:21, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
Already exists: Category:All WikiProject Medicine articles (created for use by the hot articles bot). --WS (talk) 10:48, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
I think the category needs to be on the article itself not the talk page. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:52, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Draft:Red cell transfusion

The draft author has requested advice about the viability of this topic as a separate article, please weigh in at WP:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk#05:50:15.2C 29 January 2016 review of submission by TransfusionDoctor, thanks. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:26, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:39, 29 January 2016 (UTC)


  • need more opinion on draft, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

International League Against Epilepsy

Hey All. Exciting news. After a couple of years of discussion ILAE has moved to an open license for EpilepsyDiganosis.org. This is just for the text though and not the images and videos.

Additionally they are starting an Open Epilepsia journal. They plan to have experts write Wikipedia formatted literature reviews under a compatible license :-) I think this partnership will give us greater weight in our efforts to convince World Health Organization to go to an open license.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:56, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

[12]very useful information for articles--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:11, 3 February 2016 (UTC)
Doc James Excellent news. Can they also provide expert review of the current article on epilepsy? JFW | T@lk 15:44, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
They want to iron out the processes or writing content about less common types of epilepsy first, but yes that will likely occur. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:46, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Doc James Good, I'd like some assurance that we've not sustained major damage after the recent huge content dispute about the main article. JFW | T@lk 15:07, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes we should get to epilepsy in a bit. Hopefully in a few months. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:37, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Judith Orloff

Dear medical experts: I've been editing this article about a person with medical qualifications. I am posting about it here because this is a topic I know little about, and someone here may want to check its accuracy. There is also another page Draft:Judith H. Orloff, but in spite of some similarities I don't think it's the same person, and I haven't been able to show notability so far.—Anne Delong (talk) 15:49, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:13, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Proposed name change from Vaginal flora to Vaginal microbiota

I propose that the name of the article be changed to: Vaginal microbiota. The reasons are many and the discussion is taking place on the talk page. The Very Best of Regards,

Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:03, 9 February 2016 (UTC)


Reviews, bitte

This weekend I worked over three articles that were bad bad bad. If you like please review them to make sure i didn't screw anything up.

  • Orphenadrine
  • Rasagiline this had been written by someone from Teva I think
  • Selegiline (note that I merged Emsam (transdermal form of the drug, which is for depression) into the main article which was only about the oral form, which is for Parkinsons. The Ensam article was an obvious marketing product but I am not sure the merge was successful.

There is a lot of hype from the longevity people about Rasagiline and Selegiline as anti-aging drugs that i mostly got rid of.

Thanks Jytdog (talk) 08:26, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

all 3 articles are very well referenced and help the reader understand the topic,(Selegiline, reference #46 [13]seems to use this link?[14])--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:39, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for checking them Ozzie. Jytdog (talk) 03:00, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
In "Selegiline", I recommend using either "L-DOPA" or "levodopa" consistently. (In the UK, "levodopa" is the more frequently used name for the drug, so I would prefer that.) Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:06, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
In "Selegiline", I am not convinced that NNT, NNH & LHH values should be included in a general encyclopedia. The style guide does not mention these values. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
NNT and NNH I think are important and should be included if the data is available. One just needs to write it out in normal English. With med X, Y people require treatment for one to benefit. It is much better than RR improvement. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:12, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I debated including them but thought about doc james specifically and then included them. I am not experienced in writing about them so Doc if you have developed better plain English ways to write about them, it would be great if you could apply that - I will watch and learn. It seems especially complicated to write about simply when it comes to NNH which gets broken down for each kind of side effect. Jytdog (talk) 17:18, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Hmm, given the difference of opinion on the matter, it would be good to get a wider consensus and add it to the style guide. Please comment here. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:58, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Potentially promotional article (Flammer syndrome)

I have the thirst article on my watchlist due to vandalism, and I noticed that 156.22.9.252 removed a mention of Flammer syndrome saying that "Flammer syndrome" is not well characterised, has no diagnostic test. As a clinical entity, it is not an established disease. It cannot be found in textbooks, or the international classification of diseases. They made some other edits to Flammer syndrome and added some snark to Josef Flammer. I think the IP editor probably has a good point; I can't find anything about Flammer syndrome with a quick Google search that isn't published by Josef Flammer himself, and both the articles about the syndrome and its eponym are the work of George G Milford (talk · contribs), a single-purpose account (save for a few minor edits). However I don't feel qualified to take any further action on this issue myself, as I have no expertise in either medicine or glaucoma. Could someone who is more conversant with the medical field look into this? Looie496 previously brought this subject up on this project's talk page, but received no replies. I'm also pinging TylerDurden8823 who made some edits to the Flammer syndrome page, perhaps in response to that thread. Graham87 11:08, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

One review here [15]. Articles need some work. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:51, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
That journal is not Medline-indexed, was web-only, and only existed during 2010-2011 (cf NLM record). Perhaps not a reliable source. — soupvector (talk) 13:26, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Also mentioned here (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26558263). This source is a MEDLINE-indexed journal though the article is not yet indexed. After looking through PubMed, the IP address is correct that there is little written about it that isn't from Flammer. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 17:53, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
I've proposed a merge to the biography about the 'inventor'. Please comment over there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:37, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for all your replies; I've supported the merge. Graham87 07:56, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


  • Thirst article needs editor help/referencing, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:58, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Estrous cycle article, and sexual behavior in relation to the menstrual cycle

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Estrous cycle#Addition of a section on the estrus cycle and sexual behaviour. By that, I mean where to place material concerning sexual behavior in relation to the menstrual cycle, including evolutionary perspectives? I argued that the Estrous cycle article is not the best place for material on humans, since it's commonly agreed upon by scientists and other researchers that human females do not have an estrous cycle, though some researchers disagree. I did note, however, that the Estrous cycle article should include the evolutionary viewpoint that human females once had estrus, lost it, and that some researchers believe that human females still have it. Anyway, a class has been assigned to the Estrous cycle article, and most of what they want to add would be more appropriate for the Ovulation, Concealed ovulation or Menstrual cycle article. A WP:Permalink for the discussion so far is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:17, 5 February 2016 (UTC)


  • give opinion(a Featured article is being discussed)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:10, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Brachial plexus help

Could someone please help fill in the empty boxes in the table at Brachial plexus#Specific branches ? 173.225.249.190 (talk) 16:18, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

WP Anatomy answered [16]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:20, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia article in a peer reviewed journal

Our friends at Retraction Watch report that content from Wikipedia found its way into a peer reviewed article in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:29, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm more concerned that they published an article on reincarnation. i hope that journal is not used much as a source in WP  :) Jytdog (talk) 19:34, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
Sadly it is [17]. From WP:JCW, it's cited at least 27 times. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:59, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
It is relatively common especially among low quality journals. We have a template for it that we put on the talk page to hopefully decrease people using it as a ref in the article Template:Backwardscopy. All articles that contain the template are here for those interested in writing about the issue.
There is a whole bunch of books based on use too [18] without proper attribution.
It is such a common practice that I only use the template if the source is half okay.
Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:18, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
[19] more coverage--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:36, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Nanomedicine

Got an editor probably WP:SELFCITE-ing content about what seem novel applications of nanomedicine as cancer therapy. I'm not sure how established this is - could probably do with eyes from somebody who knows more ... Alexbrn (talk) 17:39, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

And I have seen new accounts adding refs to Frontier journals such as here. The refs do not always support the content in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:50, 3 February 2016 (UTC)


Help on wooishly written medical article

I came across this article after reading something by an antivaccine activist. It does not seem to be written in a wikipedia like manner and seems to be pushing an alt med view. I am not familiar with wikipedia writing to know if I am correct. I wonder if someone could take a look at it. Thanks.

Fred R. Klenner 96.41.40.245 (talk) 20:21, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree. The article is indeed in need of serious work to be of adequate quality. I've trimmed a good amount of unreferenced or poorly referenced material to start. I encourage fellow Wikiproject Medicine veterans to have a look. Thank you for bringing this to our attention 96. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 22:45, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Is it something to send to AFD? JFW | T@lk 18:10, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
AFD? 97.93.61.107 (talk) 18:21, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
WP:AFD, or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. We tend to talk in Wikipedia:Shortcuts (or perhaps you'd rather call it WP:GIBBERISH  ;-) when we aren't thinking. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Yep, the science and medicine are pretty badly slanted, inasmuch as they completely omit any reality-based information whatsoever. The "life and career" section appears to be plagiarized, as well. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:45, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks folks. This is quite an education. I found another badly written article if anyone would like to look. I will watch what people do and maybe I can learn how to ID the issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyrol 97.93.61.107 (talk) 02:34, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

WebMed Central

While cleaning up WP:JCW, I landed on something called WebMedCentral [20]. I visited the website, and saw a pretty astonishing claim: "Guaranteed biomedical publication within 48 hours".

Is this a shit journal/website? Because if so, there is at least

which cite those journals/website. Possibly more. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:50, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

  • Comment: I found this discussion through Headbomb's post at WT:AJ. It looks like the website publishes "all but the clearly irrelevant and unscientific work" within 48 hours, but then only conducts a peer review after the articles are published (see this link for their peer review policy). Once articles have been successfully peer reviewed by two editors, then they are moved to the "peer reviewed" portion of the website. I primarily publish articles in the humanities, but I have never seen anything like this. The website's "shoot first, ask questions later" approach makes me seriously question the reliability of articles published here. At the very least, I think articles published on this website should be considered self published sources for the purposes of assessing their reliability. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 00:32, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Post-publication peer review is a legitimate, albeit uncommon, publication model in the sciences; there's been more interest in it in the last few years due in part to the file drawer problem. (F1000Research is a relatively established example in the biomedical field; only papers that have been reviewed and approved get indexed in pubmed.) I recall WebMedCentral getting criticism when it launched a couple of years ago, but I don't know where it stands now. Certainly any citations to papers that haven't been reviewed should be removed. Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:43, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
"We hope that these articles will be indexed by appropriate bodies in near future." meaning they aren't. Combined with the typos, and semi-hijacked of the WedMD and PubMedCentral brands, this seems very predatory indeed. Going to ping @DGG:, @Randykitty: on this. Maybe Beale's list has some info on these journals. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:53, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Beall's list doesn't pop up anything, but here is the Beall-style criticism it received from a PLoS editor. The quality of the offerings on their website says enough, though. Opabinia regalis (talk) 01:01, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Very interesting. The "file drawer problem" certainly exists in the humanities as well, and WebMedCentral says that it uses its model "to make the process of publishing more inclusive, efficient, accountable, economical, unbiased and transparent". In the humanities, websites like SSRN help disseminate meaningful scholarship in an unbiased forum, but I'm not sure if there is an equivalent forum in medicine or the hard sciences. In any event, thanks for the explanation! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 01:08, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
While I suppose a post-publication peer review model could work in principle, I have difficulty identifying any extant successful examples—and I would be very reluctant to hold up F1000Research as a role model. Perhaps it's just because I do a lot of weeding of fringe content, but my experience with F1000 is mostly in its role as an outlet for papers about Morgellons disease. My understanding is that F1000 collects their publishing fee as soon as the paper goes up on their website, and peer review happens later...eventually, maybe. Even then, it is explicitly the responsibility of a paper's authors to suggest peer reviewers to F1000 [21]. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:43, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Yep, they and Frontiers have both had some bad barrel-scraping moments. I don't think the F1000 process of soliciting reviewer suggestions is much different than any journal that accepts such recommendations (a lot, at least in my little niche). A colleague sent them a file-drawer paper awhile back and the reviews were slow to arrive, but the experience was otherwise ordinary. The topic was technical and pretty fringeproof, though. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Digging somewhat deeper, you can find well over 1500 articles in those journals. How many have passed their peer-review process? A measly 31 apparently. This may indicate that the peer-review system is rigorous, but holy cow this seems like a cynical ploy to capitalize on the fact that people probably will not suspect that they accept literally anything for publication. Did you publish in a peer-reviewed venue? Yes you technically did! Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:07, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Nearly all cited articles were non-reviewed/failed review. I removed those. The two remaining references to WebMedCentral are

I lack the expertise to determine if those are appropriate sources or not for the claims they are attached to. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:26, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

The material they publish must be judged by the reputation of the author and the reviewer.There seem to be three types of review: the author suggests reviewers (and this is often the case in traditional journals also), One of their editors can review -- and that review is apparently anonymous; I am not convinced the quality of their editors is sufficiently high to be taken on faith, as we must in a traditional journal. . Anyone else can add a review also. . Looking at the two items in question:

Neonatal_tetanus. All 3 types of review are present. The reviews show the qualifications of the reviewer. None of them are experts in the subject. On the other handm what it documents is trivial. I'd remove the sentence & ref altogether.
Phenethylamine. This is a review paper, not a research paper. It doesn't document anything specific. The reviewers, tho not specialists, considered it a fairly mediocre review. We do not really need it, but there's no reason to remove it, since PMC accepted it. BTW, I think the style of the WP article with its multiple long quotations, is pretty awful. I don't know if the Medical editors are encouraging this nowadays. DGG ( talk ) 04:38, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
I added that review to the phenethylamine article a while back; every medical statement it cites is independently supported by at least 1 other review, but the citation is a pubmed-indexed review so I don't see any issue with MEDRS compliance. Quoting the supporting text from the citation is simply my personal preference, although I usually only do this when citing multiple statements from a single review or the cited statement is rather technical. So long as there is direct attribution, which is provided by the cite template, quotations are acceptable so long as the length isn't excessive. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:28, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
I'm puzzled by DGG's comment "...there's no reason to remove it, since PMC accepted it" and Seppi333's comment "...the citation is a pubmed-indexed review so I don't see any issue with MEDRS compliance". These seem to imply a level of endorsement or quality that isn't suggested by the WP:MEDRS guideline and certainly isn't how I understand these resources. I realize this is a bit of a non sequitur in this debate about WMC, and these comments may not reflect the users' true intent, but I think a shared understanding of reliable sources is needed (and IMHO there's much more to it than the pubmed or PMC inclusion than the comments I've cited might suggest). — soupvector (talk) 13:10, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
I agree with you, actually; I didn't word it precisely. My meaning was only that we could justify keeping it, and there is no inherent reason why we must remove it. But there is no reason why we need add references to all reviews on a subject--we can select the best. One of the factors is where the review was published. And even the reviewers for this journal didn't think the review was particularly good. The only reason we might want to use it is if there was no other recent open access review. Though some medical articles here may look otherwise, we do not need in WP articles to include every available reference. DGG ( talk ) 17:11, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
The name of the website alone is a red flag. As Headbomb mentions, it is an attempt to trick readers into conflating the established websites PubMed Central and WebMD with this one. The purpose of their immediate publishing model is to make money as quickly as possible and encourage researchers who just want a fast publication to submit their work to WebMDCentral.
While much of the content might be of reasonable quality, I suspect that a lot is substandard. Headbomb's discovery that only 31 papers have received two satisfactory reviews is an indictment of the website's methods. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:38, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
agree w/ Axl--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:58, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

History of Medicine Editathon in person or remote participation welcome

You are all invited to a history of Medicine editathon in Edinburgh or remote. 16th to 18th Feb. For those who can't make it to Edinburgh at such short notice, this is an opportunity to request photographs be taken of various buildings and of material owned by the University of Edinburgh. ϢereSpielChequers 10:11, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

thank you for info--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:59, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Osmosis....reminder

[22] last video date is 2-20-16 for Diverticulitis need editor reviews, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:34, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I've been giving feedback, but I don't recall seeing notice that new videos are being posted. Are they? Doc James have you seen any? Seems to me that the Osmosis folks could provide links to the videos on the same page as the scripts (and I'd prefer that they not remove the links to the scripts, since we've contributed). I've commented on the Talk page. — soupvector (talk) 02:08, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Okay will flag this to them. Videos are on commons here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:40, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Orthopedic spamorama

Stumbled over Distraction osteogenesis and Limb lengthening methods tonight, and there is also Ilizarov apparatus which I didn't get to look at yet. So, so driven by company editors. We really need to keep our eye on orthopedic device articles more.. I know most folks here are interested in diseases and drugs, but hey, doesn't hurt to ask.

I just blanked the Limb lengthening methods article as there was literally nothing specific left when I got done removing the promo content, and redirected it to Distraction osteogenesis so that is the article that really could use love. Oy. Jytdog (talk) 08:10, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:20, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for raising this. Will take a look when I have time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:45, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Outbreak-related requested move discussions

CDC map of Zika virus distribution as of 15 January 2016

There are a few outbreak-related WP:RM discussions going on.

Feedback would be welcome! larryv (talk) 04:00, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa#Requested move 26 January 2016, seems to be resolved--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:23, 27 January 2016 (UTC)


Note was moved to Zika virus outbreak (2015–present)( per[23] different than move stated above)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:00, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Template:Zika

I just started {{Zika}} to help organize the articles on the subject. Haven't put it into any article yet, as I first wanted to get some feedback here. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 18:48, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Looks good, apart from the diagnosis and treatment section. Strip that and you've got my support to implement it. CFCF 💌 📧 20:23, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
All very nice. CFCF What's wrong with the treatment section? Why not have Treatment of Zika? Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
When you have a topic that could fall under a number of titles I prefer not to redlink it. As you say it could be Treatment of Zika, Zika treatment, Diagnosis of Zika, etc. We can't be sure any of these articles will be created, or which of them will. CFCF 💌 📧 21:45, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Only some of the items in that section are redlinks. Would you remove the blue links, too? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:50, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

References supporting our medical content

Change in number of references to Wikipedia's medical content from 2009 to 2015. Data collected by Andrew West

Hey All. Some updated data on the number of references support our content. We are now over 1.4 M Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:37, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Doc James Is this number of citations made or number of sources cited? It must be citations made, right, and the sources are duplicated many times, right? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:10, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Wouldn't a better comparison be the number of references per total medical article bytes vs. time? The number of medical articles (and medical content within articles) has increased over time so the absolute number of references doesn't tell us if we're keeping up. Sizeofint (talk) 17:25, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Shouldn't the red portion of the bars be labeled "other" rather than "all" while the total height of the bar represents "all" so that "English" is not double counted? If so, it appears that citations in foreign language medical articles is growing faster than in the English Wikipedia. This may be a result of medical translation taskforce that is translating citation rich English medical articles into other languages. Boghog (talk) 20:39, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Top of the red bar represents "all" but good point other would be better. And yes agree that the translation task force likely represents a large part of the reason.
This is the total number of citations rather than the number of sources. Thus each time a source is used it is counted. More data is here
Yes we could take the number of bytes and divide it by the number of references to get bytes per reference. We have done this in the past and reference density has also been increasing. Have not done it again yet.
Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:16, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

PLOS blog post about Wiki's medical content, also - Year of Science

  • Bastian, Hilda (13 February 2016). "Wikipedia Activism and Diversity in Science". PLOS.

Our own Hildabast shares this in PLOS.

She references WP:AAAS2016, a recent Wikipedia meetup at the 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science national conference. This is the first of 12 planned Wikipedia:Year of Science events at academic conferences. Right now, there is no medical conference outreach planned, and the target conferences are hard sciences. The "Year of Science" is a mostly United States outreach effort managed by the Wiki Education Foundation. I am posting to this board because I feel that any outreach in science is a benefit to everyone here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:48, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

great info[24]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:36, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Basaglian psychiatry

Over at the apparently sleepy page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Psychiatry task force, I've posted a request about the article Morire di classe (a book coedited by Franco Basaglia) and a couple of questions related to "Democratic Psychiatry" (founded/championed by Basaglia). If you know anything about this kind of thing, please take a look and respond there. Thanks. -- Hoary (talk) 23:23, 16 February 2016 (UTC)


  • the article indicates [25] perhaps you should therefore try [26]...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:49, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Watching categories

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T9148

There's been a change to how categories interact with watchlists. You can now see people adding and removing categories from articles, in your watchlist, by watching the category page.

This feature is turned off by default. You can change that by going to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist and un-ticking the item "Hide categorization of pages". Alternatively, there is a way to change it temporarily on the watchlist page itself, by checking or un-checked "page categorization" in the "Hide:" list.

I know that several of you have long wished for this feature. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

very good feature WAID, thank you[27]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:10, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree - that's a pretty useful feature. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 16:35, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, thanks for the tip Johnbod (talk) 17:03, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Anti-psychiatry

I was clicking around and found myself on the Anti-psychiatry page and... it's a mess. I didn't know much of anything about antipsychiatry, but the blatant character attacks and POV pushing were red huge flags, so I started checking sources and none that I've checked so far have anything to do with antipsychiatry. I got the sense from the talkpage that there's a lot of poorly sourced information backing up ideas about psychiatry that stem from Scientology. Their beliefs do have a place in the article... but with proper sourcing and NPOV. There are other POVs being pushed as well. Apparently it's a very contentious topic. Now that I've read up a bit about it, it's actually quite interesting. But cleaning up the article will be a lot to tackle... so I'm posting this on the relevant wikiprojects in the hopes that others might find it interesting too and want to help. :) I've started a discussion about it at Talk:Anti-psychiatry/Archive 8#Sources. Permstrump (talk) 19:18, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:06, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Ventricular remodeling page

This page seems to be of general poor quality and perhaps would better come under the title of cardiac remodelling. Incorrectly says that remodelling is an exclusively pathological state. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2300466/pdf/nhj1612900.pdf

I'm new to the medicine page so I'm not sure if flagging it like this follows the correct protocol but it is of quite poor quality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aidan Haslam (talk • contribs) 16:00, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Aidan, and welcome. We don't have complicated protocols here. You can talk about any article you want – good, bad, strange, fun, whatever. Please WP:Be bold and try to improve the article and add sources to it. It'd be nice to see a ==Diagnosis== section, for example. (How do you find out if this is going on?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
article needs quite a bit of work and should be moved to "Cardiac remodeling"--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:18, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Stanford medical student op-ed

Seems that Stanford med students don't go to class anymore. See

The Wikipedia University School of Medicine

"We must ask ourselves if Stanford, or any medical school for that matter, can create a better curriculum than the combination of Khan Academy, Pathoma, Lippencott’s, Goljan’s Rapid Pathology Review, First Aid, Strong Medicine, Kaplan, USMLE World, SketchyMicro, FireCracker, Doctors-In-Training, Picmonic, UpToDate, MedScape and even Wikipedia."

Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:48, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

As a medical school professor, I share the commentator's low opinion of traditional medical school syllabi; their parallel development and maintenance seems inefficient and unlikely to produce a high-quality product. Instead, faculty should be contributing to a crowd-sourced, shared syllabus. I see WP as one model to consider, if not the right home for such a syllabus. I disagree with the commentator's suggestion that preclinical teaching should be abandoned altogether, rather it should be re-examined continually in a mission-based evaluation process. I would like to see these efforts synergize with WPMED, but it's not clear to me how to make that happen. — soupvector (talk) 22:29, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Wikiversity is a possible home for such shared development of teaching resources.
Reforming medical school is probably outside of our scope. As for the author's POV, he might be be interested in Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine in New York, which requires all first-year students to train as EMTs and ride ambulances – certainly an experience that cannot be replaced with a website or a classroom. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:55, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
And it is hard to get a human cadaver to dissect outside of medical school. Or patients to examine. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:12, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
It seems that it is even difficult to get a cadaver to dissect inside medical school these days [28].75.152.109.249 (talk) 21:36, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Apparently Steven Zhangs like Wikipedia. The author of this piece is Steven Zhang, who User:Steven Zhang tells me is not him. Other Steven Zhangs may join these two in this Steven Zhang-only Facebook group, where they all discuss Wikipedia and other things. Blue Rasberry (talk) 04:49, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Maryanne Demasi

This BLP subject is a presenter/science reporter on the Catalyst TV program. She got involved in a controversy over statins in a prior program, and has just weighed into whether Wi-Fi is safe.

As these are medical or health related issues, I think a copy edit by editors with expertise in medical areas may be needed. Secondly, she is now copping a backlash re the Wi-Fi issue, and might be subjected to negative or POV editing. FYI. 220 of Borg 11:25, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Just did a little bit of tidying up, but, yes, definitely needs some input. Bondegezou (talk) 11:38, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Saw that, thanks. I tidied the lead a bit. I forgot to mention the Wi-Fi report got a mention tonight on Media Watch, also on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's channels. 220 of Borg 11:50, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Support websites for a rare disease

Editing an article about a rare disease (Postorgasmic illness syndrome). In the "External links" section, can I put links to a few support forums? The disease is rare enough that most people, including most doctors, don't even know that it exists. The links would help people who think that they might have the disease to find help.

Which Wikipedia rules would allow or disallow including this information? --POIS22 (talk) 17:34, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:External_links...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:07, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
WP:MEDMOS#External links is more relevant (short answer: no). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Links to DMOZ are typically viewed as a compromise. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:31, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Advice for Rare Disease Day Edit-a-thon

Hello, I'm helping to put together an edit-a-thon (my first) around Rare Disease Day (http://www.rarediseaseday.org/). One of our goals is to add information to rare disease articles about how people can find community support. We'd like to have a few "ideal" sources on hand for our volunteers. Does anyone know of resources related to support for rare diseases we could reference during our edit-a-thon, or any advice about this event in general? Ckoerner (talk) 21:50, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

See http://www.dmoz.org/search?q=rare+diseases&cat=all&all=no.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:58, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

There is a pretty neat Rare disease database — which has good summaries of many diseases. It gets routine updates with the goal to cover that list with articles and has specific information about Nordic and European patient groups. Also there is Orphanet which is very good and integrated into Template:Infobox medical condition. CFCF 💌 📧 22:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

  • I vote for Morgellons, chronic Lyme disease and adrenal fatigue. They don't even exist - you can't get much rarer than that! Guy (Help!) 22:40, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
    • Well, they do "exist", because those people are actually sick, and therefore you can count up the number of people affected. The difference is that what the proponents of those labels believe is the cause and/or treatment differs from what evidence-based medicine says is reasonable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
We describe ideal sources here WP:MEDRS. These are some useful US gov sources [29] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:10, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
MEDRS is too complicated for most new editors. It'd be better to give them examples like the Rare Disease Database, and tell them that they can use that for basic information. Most pages need citations for things like whether the disease is genetic or what the prognosis is, and those don't really need gold-plated academic sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
Something like this? https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/gard
Please include Postorgasmic illness syndrome in your edit-a-thon. POIS22 (talk) 19:26, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

These are all great resources, thank you! Ckoerner (talk) 20:15, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Agree GARD is a good. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:33, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

P-value fallacy

A subject relevant to WP:MED that I came across recently and decided to write an article on. Feedback and further editing is appreciated! I focused on the statistical aspects, so if anyone is interested, information that e.g. relates the subject to medicine more directly might be useful. Thanks, Sunrise (talk) 06:13, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Let's send this to WP:DYK. It's rare to have something about stats on the front page. Can anyone think of a "hook" for the "Did you know...that?" line? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:51, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
"Lies, damn lies and ..." -Roxy the dog™ woof 07:41, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for that. I wonder whether the article could be tweaked. Some of the current text is perhaps contentious, like the claim Bayesian methods are generally better. Bondegezou (talk) 08:54, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Given other editors are saying the same thing on the Talk page, I've slapped a "disputed" tag on the article. Perhaps DYK isn't appropriate until we've smoothed these issues out? Bondegezou (talk) 11:16, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Is that "contentious because it disagrees with my personal beliefs" or "contentious because I can give you three gold-plated sources on both sides"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, I consider it one of the most important articles related to medical results, because the media really needs to be aware of [30]. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:48, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

"Contentious" because I can give three gold-plated references in both sides. A quick search reveals: [31], [32], [33] Bondegezou (talk) 00:14, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
For the record, the article isn't intended to take any sides on the frequentism-Bayesianism debate, which is what those sources address. If the comment on Bayes factors is causing problems, I'm fine with removing or qualifying that (I've said this at the article too). @Bondegezou, I'd appreciate feedback/edits towards what you'd like to see. If you could move the dispute tag to specific inline references, that would also be helpful. Sunrise (talk) 11:05, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
I and others have said a lot on the Talk page already. I think the article is classic WP:CFORK: it's become a dumping ground for various different critiques of p-values, and the core material largely just takes a pro-Bayesian/anti-frequentist position. If the article isn't intended to take any sides on the frequentism-Bayesianism debate, it's failing in that regard, and it's pretty difficult for the article not to take sides when it is titled "p-value fallacy"! As an example, the article currently says towards the end, "For example, p-values do not address the probability of the null hypothesis being true or false, which can only be done with the Bayes factor". Well, that's what a Bayesian would say. I could write a "Bayes fallacy" article saying the underlying premise of the Bayesian approach is inherently flawed. As it says in the Bayesian probability article, "For the frequentist a hypothesis is a proposition (which must be either true or false), so that the frequentist probability of a hypothesis is either one or zero."
There is lots of debate in statistics and beyond about p-values, which should be covered on Wikipedia, and there is good content in this article, but why not stick it in the p-value article where (a) people will see it, and (b) it can be contextualised in an NPOV way? Bondegezou (talk) 12:57, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
I've added some more specific tags to aid discussion. I think a central problem with the article is whose fallacy is it? Some of the article is talking about common misunderstandings of the p-value, i.e. the so-called fallacy is an error on the part of the user and can be avoided with education. But some of the article describes problems as inherent to the nature of the p-value, i.e. the fallacy is unavoidable, p-values are doomed. The former is less contentious, but should be re-written to be clear that we mean misinterpretations. The latter is more contentious and comes back to Bayesian-frequentist debates. Bondegezou (talk) 13:07, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the edits and comments, and I've written some responses at the talk page. The intention, at least, was to describe a specific (named) misuse of p-values; I didn't think anything implied the fallacy was unavoidable, which was addressed by e.g. the "correct use of p-values" statement. (FWIW, I'd have no objection to a "Bayes fallacy" article as long as it's an independent concept discussed in the literature, as it is for p-values.)
I agree with you in opposing the addition of the FDR section, and I agree that it moves the article towards CFORK. In the first version of the article, I tried to avoid this by limiting the core references to include only those that used the specific term "p-value fallacy." It might be that "Misinterpretations of p-values" or even "Misinterpretations of statistics" could be notable as independent concepts, then that section could be moved there, but then there's yet another challenge with CFORK. Sunrise (talk) 08:49, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Copy and paste in Chrome

I am struggling to get the copy and paste function to work in Chrome. Not sure if others having similar issues. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Found a work around. You cut in one edit and than save. And than you make a second edit to paste. It is slow :-( Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:07, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I assume you've restarted your PC, James? Copy & paste is working fine for me in Chrome 48.0.2564.116 m (it has recently updated). Otherwise the only other thing I can suggest is to see whether temporarily disabling the javascript in User:Doc James/common.js makes any difference. --RexxS (talk) 01:00, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
K will give it a try. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:21, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I've been having issues with my browser crashing over the past few months when I try to paste text in certain articles when using chrome. Pretty irritating sometimes. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 06:15, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I've been having that with Chrome too, intermittently. It is frustrating. I get the cursor where i want, hit control v and the tab crashes and i get that stupid icon. The content is on my clipboard and if i open the page in firefox and hit edit i can paste it right in. It is a chrome issue. I use a mac; don't know if a is a chrome/PC issue. Jytdog (talk) 06:41, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Exactly how it happens for me. I suppose I should have clarified that it's the tab and not the entire browser when it happens. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 06:55, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Anyone willing to try it in the visual editor and tell me if you've got the same problems there? If it's on our side, then I know the team that gets to fix it...  ;-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:53, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Tried this several times in source/VE editing with different text in my clipboard: it doesn't crash when pasting text in VE. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 09:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Fish oil >> Omega-3 fatty acid

Fish oil capsules

These articles almost completely overlap and say different things. Not good. Please see the merge discussion here: Talk:Omega-3_fatty_acid#Merger_proposal -- Jytdog (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2016 (UTC)



give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:19, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Misophonia

Misophonia, which is about a new-ish condition that is poorly understood and makes some people really suffer, and for which some people shill "treatments" and others are ardent advocates, has been subject to one of the most fetid brews of advocacy and conflicted editing I have seen in a while. I documented the list of conflicted editors at the Talk page and completely rewrote the article tonight from very good sources, but I have a feeling hard times are a-coming. I also think there are two socks of a banned editor in the wings. More eyes would be nice. Things are OK now, just please watchlist it. We are probably going to have do some adjudicating among advocates with poor sources and it will take good, sophisticated medical editing and calm heads to keep things from degenerating. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 10:57, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

[34]will keep eye on--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:34, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Essay being added to ref section of articles

{{Research help|Med}} I see a link to a help essay called Wikipedia:Research help being added to many med articles...even comes with a nice icon to make sure your eyes are drawn to it. Not sure how other feel about this...but I personally see a problem here. Firstly i dont believe a link to a project essay in the content of a main space article is a good idea ever (we have recommendations as to this point WP:LINKSTYLE). I also dont think the placement is a good idea either ....in the ref section? people will think these leads to more sources on the topic at hand..not an essay about Wikipedia. This info in this link can already be found under "About Wikipedia" ...at best they should be a proposal to have it in the left side bar. Having a link of this nature that the average reader will not use in the ref section is odd. Many other reasons I dont think this is a good idea....anyways see Wikipedia talk:Research help if you have a comment. Just dont see how this will help our readers...so many other essays could be linked like this for med articles...i would love a link to Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer seen on every page personally but ...we dont spam essays in this fashion. -- Moxy (talk) 04:51, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

If it belongs anywhere, it would be on the Talk pages, definitely not in main space - but this is a much wider problem as other subject versions have been spammed much more widely. Guy (Help!) 10:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
This is a self-reference and does not belong in the article space. I would support its integration in the {{WPMED}} template on the talk page, but not as is being done currently.
@Barbara (WVS): (is Bfpage) might have established consensus for this in another forum - comments appreciated. JFW | T@lk 15:04, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I think this was being trialed on a small number of articles. I do not think there was consensus to add it to a large number. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
It is The Reader that we should consider on each and every edit we make to Wikipedia.

‎

  • Some of us were in favor of adding this to quite a few articles, and there was at least pretty strong consensus to add it to all anatomy articles. It includes the link to a remarkably well-referenced and researched information page on how to make use of Wikipedia materials—and I am unable to point to any similar essay that comes near. We can presume that it is not directed to editors, but to readers of Wikipedia who are not accustomed to analyzing sources in the same fashion. Adding it to the talk-page entirely defeats the purpose and makes it irrelevant. Frankly, there is too much opposition to change on Wikipedia, even when that change is for the good of the project and really stands to benefit the reader, and I still support this. CFCF 💌 📧 21:52, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
This past talk was mentioned before..I cant find it...would love to see it. Where people made aware that is was to be in the ref section that has small text? It has a big icon and normal lettering. Why was this not proposed for the left hand menu? I think most have a problem with an essay linked in the contents of an article over a place people would look for that type of info. Just an odd place as many people get to the ref section by clicking the refs in the article...thus takes them past the header. I do see a great value for this in the side menu. As i said above having the Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer on every med page I think would be more infoamtive to the average reader over a link for just a segment of the population. -- Moxy (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
The original discussion can be found here Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_74#Piloting_TWL_WP:Research_help_in_Reference_Sections. I understand your trepidation, but I get the feeling noone uses the left bar. Wikipedia's layout is unfortunately outdated, and with readers more used to modern layouts I think we're going to get even fewer users looking at the bar. I know we tried to tally the views these links were getting, maybe someone else involved in the the original discussion knows more? CFCF 💌 📧 00:06, 9 February 2016 (UTC) 
  • i have no objection as it is a pretty unobtrusive link. The notion of helping people think in a scholarly way is a happy one. however i also I think the chance of the link having much impact is miniscule and i will not be adding it to any articles i work on. it is not for me to tell people who want to add it, how to spend their time, but i would advise adding it to the highest trafficked articles first, where it might have some impact. Jytdog (talk) 02:51, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
  • And if traffic to the link is very small than adding it further is likely not necessary. But it is worth a trial. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:27, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
  • A few comments:
    1. This project isn't actually being done by WPMED. WPMED doesn't own medicine-related pages, and other people are welcome to edit those pages without getting "permission" from us. Apparently, some of them are.
    2. It's not a WikiProject essay; it's a help page.
    3. The sensible way to find out whether this location works as well as the sidebar would be a controlled trial, which you could always propose. I doubt that it will; firstly, there's no good evidence that regular readers look at the sidebar, and secondly, the sidebar doesn't even exist on the mobile site, which is where more than 30% of page views happen – and probably more than 30% page views among key demographics for this, such as students.
    4. Hiding information for readers on the talk page, which we know non-editors almost never look at, would be illogical. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
    Did someone say this was being done by WPMED?
    The question is will this template be clicked on were it is right now?
    Mobile readership is much more than 30%. In fact this week it was 53% mobile / 47% desktop among our top 5000 articles.[35]
    Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:22, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Ping Astinson (WMF) — who might not be aware of the discussion here. CFCF 💌 📧 22:49, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
    Hi. Sorry for not responding sooner, most of the conversants also participated at WT:Research help, thus far. We are testing the template, that is all, on a limited set of articles (with BAG approving 5,000 pilots on each WPMIL and WPMED articles). The test is focusing on the broad clusters of articles, because we don't want to just be stacking our impact, on high traffic articles. In part, we want to figure out if this is reasonable thing to include in all articles, and/or where in the interface its best to deploy the template. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
[36] seems like a good idea--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:29, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Flow and pressure, fluid responsiveness

Need some advice on the naming of an article. There is a body of research developing around measuring blood flow in small blood vessels and targeting this in critical illness. The easiest (and most widely studied) part of the microvasculature is under the tongue. I am unsure what to call an article on this subject - sublingual microcirculatory flow index or microcirculatory flow image analysis or something like that? doi:10.1186/s13054-016-1213-9 is a recent reference. JFW | T@lk 14:59, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

sublingual microcirculatory image analysis per [37] ...(microvascular could be used as well...IMO)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:25, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm inclined to skip the "sublingual" part in the article title, if that seems reasonable to you. "Sublingual X" is going to make some people think that they need to start a new article for "X" in any other body part, and it sounds like that's probably not warranted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I'd agree with WAID on this one. If Microcirculatory image analysis ever got so large that it needed splitting, we could create the "Sublingual ..." daughter article. But I suspect that's some way off. --RexxS (talk) 23:47, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
RexxS I believe your correct--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:31, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Maladaptive daydreaming

Not sure what to do about this? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:12, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

references could be improved, though not too many reviews [38]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:59, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
I worked on it little bit, removing non-MEDRs sources.
Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:44, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

RfC: References for anatomical images (or other images) at the Human sexuality article?

Opinions are needed on the matter: Talk:Human sexuality#Should the anatomy images or other images have references?. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:52, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

We do not tend to reference images. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:04, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
It appears that someone has added {{fact}} tags to photos that identify various bits of anatomy and is edit-warring to keep the tags in place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
My opinion is that medical images do need to be referenced. Any editor can create any image about anything. Regards, Barbara (WVS) (talk) 11:02, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Terminological dispute at the Vaginoplasty article

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Vaginoplasty#Sex reassignment surgery heading and similar. A WP:Permalink for it is here. The dispute concerns whether to use the term sex reassignment surgery instead of gender reassignment surgery, and sex reassignment therapy instead of gender reassignment therapy.

On a minor note: There is also a "describes" vs. "is" dispute, seen here, here and here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:33, 1 March 2016 (UTC)


give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion at Sex reassignment surgery article

As if right in time to coincide with the above Vaginoplasty article dispute, there is a move discussion currently going on at Talk:Sex reassignment surgery#Requested move 1 March 2016. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:10, 2 March 2016 (UTC)


Cancer woo

See retraction watch. These studies have supported a lot of quackery over the years. Guy (Help!) 10:12, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

[39] cited 96 times...WOW--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:27, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
curcumin woo. that stuff works in every assay in which it is tested. sticky phytochemicals. Jytdog (talk) 20:40, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Seems like this retracted paper isn't used on enWikipedia, though.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:14, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
They are all primary sources so one hopes they weren't! It will be interesting to see if reviews change at all. I kind of doubt because there are zillions of papers on curcumin's supposed wonderpowers. Jytdog (talk) 21:35, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
Don't you love the way that certain publishers will still try to charge you to read a paper that they've retracted, or even to read the retraction notice? This is something that the ICMJE should be addressing, as it has real consequences for the persistence of ideas based on shabby work. On a related note, at one time we were considering a bot to check PubMed's "publicaton type" field for retractions of papers that we have cited. I don't think this was ever done. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:35, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Medical massage

Medical massage (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Can someone look over this article and make appropriate edits vis-a-vis WP:MEDRS? I am not as familiar with the medical stuff and not sure if alternative medicine falls under it. This article appears to be a mess and could really use a look over from someone more knowledgeable than I. Ping me if you reply. Thank you! EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

this source might be useful [40]...however Medical massage seems to also be covered at Massage#Medical massage --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:23, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Who is attending Wikimania in Italy

Hey All I am trying to get a list of people attending Wikimania here [41]. Also wondering about who would be interested in speaking about medical topics / projects. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:54, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Get me a plane ticket from Pittsburgh and some lodging and I'll be there. I'll pay for my own food. Best Regards,
Barbara (WVS) (talk) 14:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC) and Bfpage
There are scholarships, not sure where they are at but I am not involved in those at all. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:43, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
I will be there. Here is what I see so far at the program -
Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:00, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
If I didn't have work and could get there, I'd definitely apply for the scholarships. :/ TylerDurden8823 (talk) 01:29, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Scholarship info - wm2016:Scholarships - most scholarships had an application deadline of 9 January and will be announced 8 March. There seem to be some scholarship opportunities open, but probably not more than 2-3 globally, and probably not for English speakers. In the past few months the Wikimedia Foundation has expressed a wish to make Wikimania an event every two years instead of yearly, perhaps to be more inclusive when the event does happen. See meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Towards a New Wikimania/Outcomes for discussion. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:26, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Fremitus

I just pruned this of unsourced material, which was basically most of the article. Oh, there was one para sourced to a handout and one to a predatory journal, but that does not count. The article could probably do with expanding now. Guy (Help!) 11:21, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

[42]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:03, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
User:JzG, do you have any reason to believe that all the material you blanked is not actually capable of being verified (e.g., by anyone who has access to Google)? I don't know much about the subject, but WP:V discourages the "blank it all just because nobody has already jumped through the add-a-citation hoop" thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:24, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Functional neurological symptom disorder

There is some weird stuff going on here. The content of the article appears to contain a substantial amount of OR, and also its history is strange. It was created from an article called Functional neurological disorder, but instead of doing it with a page move, the contents of the old article were copy-pasted to the new title, and then the old title was redirected. I'm not sure how to handle this. Looie496 (talk) 16:14, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

[43][44]?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:04, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Step one is probably to find an admin to merge the page histories, then. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Circumcision link at Clitoral hood reduction article

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Clitoral hood reduction#Circumcision See also link. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:21, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Continued inclusion of the wikilink to circumcision is the least of all the problems with this article. Unless I am mistaken, the article contains no MEDRs references and the reference section is filled with content that probably should be in the body of the article. One book reference cannot be attributed to a book title or isbn and is only a pdf consisting of a chapter of the unknown book. Best Regards,
Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:59, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Barbara (WVS), as seen with this edit, you might want to talk to with Ranze about some of the sourcing you removed from that article. Another big contributor to the article (as seen here, for example) is Otto Placik, who is currently indefinitely blocked. Thus far, I've had very little to do with that article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:41, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I could be mistaken, but in my reading, clitoral hood reduction is performed on adults who meet the legal definition of informed consent, under anaesthetic, in safe (sterile) conditions, for reasons that are allegedly medical (patient self-esteem) and not religious. Male circumcision is carried out in a range of circumstances, including in neonates incapable of giving informed consent, in often without anaesthetic, sometimes in non sterile conditions (Prepex), frequently for religious reasons.
Clitoral hood reduction is performed in low numbers for non-religious reasons, while male circumcision is performed routinely among Muslims and Jews, using proxy consent without the informed consent of neonates.
History of male circumcision#Masturbation concerns and John Harvey Kellogg#Masturbation prevention indicate that male circumcision has been used historically as a punitive measure against teenagers found masturbating.
Note that Female genital mutilation#Europe and the United States states that clitoridectomy was performed in the US to "treat" "hysteria, erotomania and lesbianism"
My understanding is that the Clitoral hood reduction article is about non-punitive medical practise.
Religiously and culturally motivated female genital mutilation is promoted within some African countries as preventative against infidelity. Clitoral hood reduction is not promoted as reducing sexual pleasure, or preventing infidelity, and should not be conflated with religious and cultural prohibitions on masturbation and/or adultery.
A number of apologists for female genital mutilation say that clitoral hood reduction can be conflated with type 1 FGM performed for religious and cultural reasons. While female genital mutilation is promoted as preventing infidelity, Western apologists for the practise assert that it is done for aesthetic reasons, in order to conflate type 1 FGM on prepubescents with elective clitoral hood reduction on adults. Richard A. Shweder, in a specious 2013 paper, says that all "female genital surgeries (whether in Africa or Beverly Hills)" have common features. The false conflation is repeated in the recent pro-FGM paper in J Med Ethics.
In many Western countries, male circumcision is performed on neonates for religious reasons by the parents, while Clitoral hood reduction is only performed on post-pubescent individuals that elect for the procedure. It makes me uncomfortable that elective female genital cosmetic procedures are given an implied commonality with religious genital alteration on pre-pubescent individuals.
If a "see also" section has to be used, the article Genital modification and mutilation is a better target than male circumcision, because Genital modification and mutilation includes a range of operations, including ones that are not religiously based.
-- Callinus (talk) 03:22, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Callinus, regarding your above arguments and this edit you made, I still can't see the issue with linking to the Circumcision article; this is per what I stated at Talk:Clitoral hood reduction#Circumcision See also link. But I don't feel too strongly about it, and am not going to edit war over it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:29, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Glad to be made aware of this, can't recall dealing with this topic recently, we could probably continue discussion of the particulars on the talk page. @Callinus: your observations about the different usual conditions these surgeries happen under could be right, but that's quite unrelated to the general topic of the page. Nothing about the term "hood removal" implies consent must be absent or present. Nothing about 'male circumcision' implies it must be present or absent either. Either surgery can be done with consent or without it, in sterile or unsterile conditions. Your observations about statistics of these variables (if supported by sources) can have a place on the page but they do not support disassociating the clearly similar topics from one another. Ranze (talk) 03:17, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Hearing loss

A discussion on if the World Health Organization is a suitable reference here Talk:Hearing_loss#Prevention_efforts_from_WHO Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:08, 3 March 2016 (UTC)



more opinions(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:19, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

AA

Is anyone interested in Effectiveness of Alcoholics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:52, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

will look(Alcoholics Anonymous/talk)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:20, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Expert input on Zika

I am setting up a mailing list for ongoing research around Zika virus, Zika fever and Zika virus outbreak (2015–present). So if any questions come up here that need expert input, please ping me or post there directly. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 11:30, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Smoking fetishism article

I came across the Smoking fetishism article after reverting Meganesia at the List of paraphilias article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:10, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Thoughts? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:11, 5 March 2016‎ (UTC)

perhaps better refs (though PubMed comes up[45] and Google books has [46]..?)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:15, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Discussion about generally considering articles from predatory publishers unreliable

There is a discussion here if that topic is of interest. It has been going on since Feb 26, but just wanted to make sure folks here are aware of it. Jytdog (talk) 18:03, 4 March 2016 (UTC)


give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:17, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

"Adding sources to the lead is a reasonable practice but not required as long as the text in question is supported in the body of the article"

Is what WP:MEDMOS currently says, echoing WP:LEAD. In fact our normal practice goes well beyond that. Isn't it time to adjust that & say something that better reflects what we actually do? The question has been raised at Talk:Electronic_cigarette#Why_all_the_refs_in_the_lead.3F. I'd propose:

  • "In Wikipedia articles generally adding sources to the lead is a reasonable practice but not required as long as the text in question is supported in the body of the article [the old text- add link to WP:LEAD]. Because of the particular importance of accuracy in medical articles, it is generally expected that citations are included in their leads, as in the rest of the article."

Thoughts? Johnbod (talk) 14:55, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm much more comfortable with the proposed language. Very often, leads contain assertions that aren't in the article (perhaps they shouldn't, but they often do) - let alone supported by a source in the article. Also, often I find what I want in the lede, so don't see why I have to go scouring through the article for the source (which often, as I say, isn't there anyway). --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:05, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
I dislike refs in the lead because they impair readability, and don't want to make them mandatory. Instead of the second sentence above I would suggest, In cases where editors disagree, it is generally best to err on the side of adding references. If other editors have added high-quality references in good faith, it is usually best to leave them in place. Looie496 (talk) 15:09, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
But they are "generally expected", by long custom and consensus, in medical articles. The wording was chosen to avoid making them mandatory. Can you point to any case where an editor has objected to including them, other than the e-cig discussion I just linked to? I don't usually cite up the lead in other articles I write, but always in medical ones. I'm ok with having your sentences as well, after mine. Johnbod (talk) 15:16, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
They're not "generally expected" by actual readers in any article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Require citations in lead of medical articles The premise behind not requiring them is that the community is capable of verifying that the content in the lead is also in the bottom and also verified. In fact, this is not possible. The community has never been able to manage this. It is a myth that it ever was possible, and a legacy from a time when Wikipedia did not require citations generally and from before communities like medicine started to examine the issue more closely.
I challenge the premise that it is possible to keep track of content in the lead without citations. It is difficult enough to verify content with citations, and unreasonable to suggest that some kind of institutional editor memory or notes on the talk page are sufficient to make it easy for readers and Wikipedia editors to quickly match content in the lead to citations without repeating the citations in the lead. I have two controversial opinions against Wikipedia policy - one is that content in Wikipedia should be matched with citations to existing published sources, and the second is that everywhere, including in infoboxes and the lead, information should be matched with citations. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:56, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • it is best to have citations in lead per reasons given by Bluerasberry...additionally I think it benefits the reader the most --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:22, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't think it's a good idea to try to set up a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that contradicts standard practice on this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Whatever guidance is given in MEDMOS, I don't think it would be a good idea to alter what general guidance already exists without a very good reason. The present guidance is located at WP:LEADCITE and WP:WHENNOTCITE. In a nutshell, that boils down to "decide it on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus". It's also worth remembering that the lead not only summarises the rest of the article, it also introduces and defines it, which means that some content may be unique to the lead - and hence not cited elsewhere. --RexxS (talk) 18:30, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • oppose We can't really go past LEAD and require this, in my view. I understand the desire among some to do this (Doc James pays mind to how people use WP, and many use mobile, and many read only the lead), and I hear Bluerasberry's point as well. We can strongly suggest it but we cannot require it, in my view. We can't become a walled garden.
however on the specific issue of their use in the lead of the e-cigs, LEAD does say that they should be used if anything in the lead is challenged and given how every jot and tittle of that article has been fought over, they should be used in the lead, absolutely. Jytdog (talk) 18:34, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Why are you opposing? The proposal is only to say it is "generally expected", which if anything is milder than the "strongly suggest it" you say you support. Johnbod (talk) 19:17, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
I wasn't proposing specific language when I said "strongly suggest". Sorry to confuse. I don't like "generally expected" as it is not true in the RW nor even here at WP:MED. I would accept something like: "Because many users read only the lead, and because content about health can be complex, it is useful to provide inline citations to support content about health in the lead." something like that. Jytdog (talk) 19:33, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Adding to the "how articles are read in the real world" idea: Almost nobody reads the citations. You could put random gibberish in the ref tags and almost no readers would notice. The more sophisticated ones might get a "oooh, it's cited, so it must be accurate!" feeling, but that effect is actually an argument against including citations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
well you made me laugh! but i would hope there are some people who read seriously. Jytdog (talk) 19:48, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
I also want to re-iterate that this discussion has nothing to do with the issue at play at the e-cig article. Plain old WP:LEAD is what is at play there. It is of course fine to talk about how to tweak MEDMOS but there is nothing at stake for the e-cig people in this discussion. Jytdog (talk) 19:55, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • It seems to me that WP:LEADCITE and WP:WHENNOTCITE are pretty loose in what they require (although I've seen some editors be more aggressive in trying to purge cites from ledes). So I don't think there is a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS problem and it's reasonable for MEDMOS to at least suggest that citations might be more common in medical articles lede. Bondegezou (talk) 18:40, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
    • The LOCALCONSENSUS problem appears because a very small group of editors (about 0.002% of current active editors) have come to a page where another small group of editors (about 0.01% of current active editors), who are known to be sympathetic to these issues, and made an unadvertised proposal to have LEAD and MEDMOS – both of which are community-wide guidelines – apply opposite rules to medicine and non-medicine articles. The rule proposed (in practice) is that citations will be rarely used in the introduction to an article, and decided on a case-by-case basis if wanted, except in health-related articles, when the opposite rule would be used. This is going to set us up for a WP:PGCONFLICT problem and probably another round of "you medicine project people think you're so special" disputes. It's IMO not worth it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Perhaps not require, but I think we should encourage editors to use citations in the lead for medical content. Sizeofint (talk) 19:46, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment While we cannot require them, we can each individually add references to the lead. Likely this is the best way forwards.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:14, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
    • I believe that you're right. If you, individually, believe that an individual article benefits from citations for some or all of the content in the lead, then there's nothing currently stopping you from adding that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
  • One point to consider here is that the lead operates at a higher level of synthesis than the body. Sometimes a statement in the lead may summarize half a dozen or more items from the body -- for example a list of common symptoms -- each of which may cite a different reference. Referencing the statement in the lead might then require citing a number of sources, which is seriously ugly and also not all that useful, since a reader can't tell which source is used for each bit of information. Looie496 (talk) 16:24, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
    • I agree. It's best to do this with "best editorial judgement" instead of "one size fits most". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
maybe(though its better to reference than not to..IMO)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:29, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I support referencing contentious claims and medical claims in the lead of medical articles. I almost always add references (usually 20+) to sentences in the lead of articles that I actively work on. When people have whined about me doing that in the past (e.g., see the 5 amphetamine FACs), I've compromised by moving the refs from each sentence into note at the end of the paragraph – the list of references in the note then supports the statements in that paragraph (e.g., see the current lead of amphetamine). It makes it harder to WP:V a statement if the refs don't include a quote, but at least the citations are included in the lead w/o affecting readability. Another alternative which I know Doc James supports is the use of censored references in the lead after each sentence. I'd never support the deletion of all citations from the lead of a medical article and I'd probably continue to add them even if a policy mandated otherwise. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 19:18, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Deepak Chopra RfC

There's an RfC for a physician, Deepak Chopra, at Talk:Deepak_Chopra#RfC:_Is_the_lead.2C_among_other_parts_of_the_article.2C_reflective_of_the_sources_and_a_NPOV.3F.BlueStove (talk) 00:13, 6 March 2016 (UTC)


more opinions(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:05, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Aurora Biosciences

I just created that. Please feel free to revise/improve, it you are interested - it was the biotech company founded back in the late 90s to commercialize GFPassays using Green fluorescent protein - it was acquired by Vertex and it was Aurora's work that led to Kalydeco, the first drug to treat the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis. Jytdog (talk) 00:14, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

The dab page on GFP doesn't seem to mention anything that relates to CF. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:04, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
sorry, fixed that. sorry for the slop. It is hard to see today how revolutionary GFP was back then. Jytdog (talk) 03:13, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

California rocket fuel

Crap 'medical' article with crap title... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.49.219.89 (talk) 04:09, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Trimmed a few primary sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:05, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Known causes of human cancer by organ site

Would this figure by IARC be a good addition to Cancer? Note that the image of the organs would need to be replaced for copyright reasons. --Leyo 01:36, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

the source is certainly good[47](the image seems fine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:52, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
Sure, but would it remain in Cancer Causes of cancer if added? --Leyo 01:32, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure that it's a very legible image, given the size restraints. (Imagine that full-page drawing with lots of small text, only three inches wide.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:57, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
It would be needed to be viewed at full size.
Well, I will leave the decision whether or not to add the image or to link to the PDF to the WikiProject Medicine. --Leyo 15:26, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
it has a wealth of information(maybe divide the image into 2 images, thereby reducing its overall size?)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:32, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
I would not know how to do that. What about adding it to a section Further reading or similar in Causes of cancer? --Leyo 11:32, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Peripheral blood stem cell donation

Bone marrow transplantation has been in the news recently. We should probably have something for the lemma Peripheral blood stem cell donation -- but what? At the moment, I'm considering creating a redirect either to Peripheral stem cell transplantation or Apheresis. Or would something else be appropriate. -- The Anome (talk) 12:42, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

redirect[48]...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:51, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 Done Thank you. -- The Anome (talk) 13:10, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Bot and inserted links

I've noticed several medical articles are getting links added in the reference section. Example: [49] What is the logic/discussion behind this? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:52, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

@Biosthmors: See the section above titled Bot now deploying "research" template in reference section. Looie496 (talk) 16:16, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks sorry didn't see that. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:19, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Neurologic music therapy

oh my Jytdog (talk) 06:19, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

references could use some help...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Does this look like a sub-topic of Music therapy? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
This is something from a Georgia Tech class. I put the course page here: User:Biosthmors/Intro Neuro. The professor, Steve Potter, has been assigning his students articles for years. I've tried to help the professor design his assignment properly so that we are not inundated with material that is not appropriate for an encyclopedia, but I haven't felt my efforts were particularly fruitful. I invested a lot of time in 2012 and 2013 on this. (FWIW, User:SandyGeorgia has bitterly noted shortcomings with regard to this class.) There's also discussion in the archives from this talk page, WP:Education noticeboard and the WP:EN/I about this class' efforts as well, I believe. I do not know the current status of the assignment. He was teaching the class in Fall annually, and went on sabbatical one year. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 19:30, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes it was a class project. It is the same as music therapy. A merge is needed. There are a couple of reviews in their. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:36, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
Bitterly indeed-- I believe classes like this should be blocked. I log in as unoften as possible so I don't have to see the damage. Hi-bye to my friends here, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:22, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

RfC

See Talk:Bipolar_disorder#RfC:_Is_the_happy.2Fsad_mask_in_the_infobox_section_appropriate.3F Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:36, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

its apparently closed[50]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:46, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
We can have one if people wish. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:47, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://mdwiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_77"