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Textbooks copy and pasting appear to be growing

We may need to change our referencing requirements to only allow sources published before the existence of Wikipedia.

Trying to verify that these are all names for leptospirosis: Weil's syndrome, canicola fever, canefield fever, nanukayami fever, 7-day fever, Rat Catcher's Yellows, Fort Bragg fever, black jaundice, and Pretibial fever. We list them all back in 2010.[1]

This textbook lists them in the same order as us [2] its from 2013. This textbooks list the same order [3] and it is from 2012. So does this textbook [4]. Exact same order from 2012. Gah. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:15, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Have been able to verify all to sources before Wikipedia. Looks like we got them right. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:39, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Any of the print on demand publishers should be considered as suspect, especially when there are no earlier editions. This gbook blurb is at least clear that it was taken from Wikipedia. In such cases, {{Backwardscopy}} may be useful in warning editors to avoid the wikibook, but we really need a systemic scanning tool looking at each newly added reference to test for such.LeadSongDog come howl! 13:03, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
I wonder... Amazon seems to be hip-deep in this trade. Can Jeff Bezos et al. be persuaded to dedicate some of their vast computing resources to QA of the products they're selling? No doubt there's a truth in advertising argument to be made, but they might simply want to protect their brand. LeadSongDog come howl! 13:39, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
See Amazon.com_controversies#Sale_of_Wikipedia.27s_material_as_books. Lesion (talk) 13:45, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Just a note on that last one, Boundless publish direct copies of Wikipedia, so they are always off-limits. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 15:08, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
And I like boundless, the attribute us sort of, and they make clear all their content is CC BY SA. I only have issues with those claiming copyright over our content and who do not attribute. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:04, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Book LLC is not owned by amazon though is it? Do we know how much they make from books that openly copy and paste from Wikipedia? Would be happy to approach them. We just need a well thought out argument for why they should care. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:09, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

While attribution is good, it doesn't solve the circular referencing problem. These books have a number of characteristics that can be auto detected at least in principle. All are published in recent years, have very few if any copies held in major libraries, and most are attributed to one of a handful of publishers that are themselves fairly new. They sell only online. I'm pretty sure a bot could be crafted that would be able to flag these if we agree it is needed.LeadSongDog come howl! 03:12, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes agree. The WP:Turnitin bot though is needed much more. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:10, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Duplicates

Hyperkinetic disorder. ADHD. See the infobox in hyperkinetic disorder. Note the definition/nomenclature provided for IDC10 F90. Also note that the former is basically just an article on ADHD.

I realize the former, per the ICD10 page, is a "group" of disorders as well as "ADHD", but the group is so insignificant/arbitrary that I don't think it should be an article. Should the former just redirect to the latter? Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 21:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes one is the ICD10 term the other is the DSM term. The DSM term has predominance in usage. I would support a merge as they are two different classification for the the same thing. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:28, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Dabigatran

I see dabigatran is being edited extensively, and it has some quite detailed section headings. I imagine primary sources are probably being overused. Maybe someone could take a look. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 22:10, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I have warned Truebreath more than once and left a message on WT:PHARM, but I don't have time to manually rip out all the primary sources. (S)he also edits rivaroxaban and apixaban. I agree that we need good articles on these medications. JFW | T@lk 22:30, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Wow. More than 52% of the edits to this page were made by Truebreath. At least (s)he's not spamming pharma-funded crap about how amazingly safe and effective it is. Jinkinson talk to me 22:35, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
I censored 3 sections w/ comments - left a note with each censor. Most of these edits are just layout edits to collapse the TOC/organize the article and fix section headers. I only checked one section for primary sources - it was mostly cited with recent reviews. Hopefully the rest of the article is cited similarly. Still a lot left to organize/check in this article. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 22:45, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I have placed those sections on the talk page. And re-organized the article per WP:MEDMOS. Trimmed a lot of the primary research which provided content that was overly details. Also removed dosing info and watched the three articles in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:09, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

More eyes on Daniel Amen

I added the tag for this project on the talk page. I hope that it was accurate to do so. Amen's article is going under a full overhaul, and that might be an improvement. However, a number of statements seem to cast doubt on many, possible most, aspects of his work. I'm concerned Wikipedia is characterizing him as some sort of quack, when I'm not sure that is quite accurate. a Google Scholar search suggests he has some credibility, or at least sway. I don't feel my experience in medical issues will be terribly useful here, and would very much appreciate anyone familiar with him/his fields of study, to have a look.

If he is using SPECT scans to "diagnose" ADHD and pushing vitamin supplements, yup there are issues. And the titles of his books, wow. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:53, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't know if he is doing that, or if that is another mischaracterization of what he does do. Or even if he is pioneering in the field, and trying to share what he feels are areas of further investigation. That he dumbs down complex issues, in order to get people to make better life choices, seems admirable. I don't know that any of it is that cut and dry. A thoughtful look at his life is undoubtably a good read, a tar and feathering, maybe not so much. My hunch is that items are being cherry-picked, and used against him. In fairness, others may feel that is a good solution to counteract promotional editing which has been accused on the talk page. I encourage people to have a look and address anything the feel needs it. Sportfan5000 (talk) 09:25, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia is in fact rather soft on him compared to many comments in RS. Have you read the article's Talk page? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 09:30, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Looked back in the history and there appears to be some COI editing. It seems like there was an attempt to promote him and his business on Wikipedia. And we have had a few editors deal with it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 09:51, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
User:Sportfan5000 you are framing things in terms of how you feel and your hunches. Please note that there are policies and guidelines at play that govern health related content: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Fringe_theories_and_pseudoscience (policy), WP:FRINGE (guideline) and WP:MEDRS (guideline). Folks working on the article are making judgements based on their solid knowledge of these policies and guidelines. Discussion needs to remain grounded on policies and guidelines, not on feelings and hunches. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 12:45, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


I originally posted this on the Biographies of Living Persons Noticeboard, section on Daniel Amen but thought I would add this here as well, as it might actually be even more relevant here in this discussion--
Medical-FRINGE is about science, but psychology is not, and never can be, purely a science--
I have a concern that the Daniel Amen article is being treated like a "science article" when, in fact, much of the topic is about psychology, which can never be a "pure science".
I think treating a psychology article (such as this one) like it is about "pure science", is misguided. Treating Psychology as a science has inherent limits-- that is, in reality, psychology is much more of what is called a "soft science" than it ever could be a "hard science". Science can help in the understanding of psychology, and should be used as much as possible to the extent that it can help, but there is something about psychology that is more elusive and much more difficult to pin down. There is an aspect of psychology that is very hard to apply hard science in any conclusive way.
In a nutshell, psychology is inherently subjective, when science is a practice in objectivity. (Psychology being an essential part of what psychiatry is, in addition to the neurological and pharmaceutical aspects). All of this makes it much harder to "scientifically evaluate" things that involve psychological states of mind.
*So psychiatrists are all less scientific than they appear to be (including Dr. Amen's critics). And so are neuroscientists, when they 
start talking about psychology.
Psychiatry is far from being a "cut and dried" field, and that applies as much to Dr. Amen's critics as it does to Dr. Amen. I therefore fear that treating critics of a psychological theory as if they are the "voice of science" is giving these critics authority that they do not deserve. Of course Dr. Amen should not get authority that he does not deserve either. But this does not take us to the same place as a "FRINGE conclusion. Instead it takes us to a place of not being able to know much of anything for sure. And so a responsible article would rely more heavily on the "this can not be known for sure either way tone", than a FRINGE tone. There can be no FRINGE where there is no science, or in this case, some science, but not enough science. This cuts both ways, applying just as much to Dr. Amen's critics as it does to Dr. Amen.
Thanks.
Cliffswallow-vaulting (talk) 20:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Giving the article a medical-fringe angle then implies that psychology is medical when it is not, or not sufficiently so for the purposed of medical fringe or science fringe designations.
Cliffswallow-vaulting (talk) 20:25, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
My biggest concern is that medicalizing this subject, also encourages medicalizing other psychology articles. Which opens the door to subjecting them all to medical-fringe or science-fringe designations. The ramifications go far beyond this article.
It's the wrong standard and could be abused elsewhere (in other psychology articles).
Psychology, despite it's inherent resistance to scientific method, deserves to exist and has value, without being hammered by FRINGE accusations. Better that everyone knows to take psychology with a grain of salt, rather than to label all of it as a falsehood.
Cliffswallow-vaulting (talk) 20:25, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that the use of SPECT scans doesn't fall within the remit of the scientific method? AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:30, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm saying that SPECT scans are combined with psychological evaluations-- so once you combine a Hard science method with a Soft science method, there is really no clear hard science anymore. You can't anymore prove it than disprove it.
Therefore saying that it is proven is not right, but saying that it has been dis-proven is also not right. What you can say is that there is disagreement and criticism.Cliffswallow-vaulting (talk) 05:24, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal

...of Physical examination and General medical examination - see Talk:General medical examination#Proposed merge with Physical examination

cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:13, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

File:Abdominal examn.jpg at the illustration lab

I posted this diagram on the illustration lab here [5]. Suspect the diagram will be completely reworked, so some may wish to give input at this stage if they can suggest any improvements. Kind regards, Lesion (talk) 17:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

"Indications"

  • Surgeries and procedures
    • Indications
    • Contra-indications
    • Technique (avoid step-by-step instructions)
    • Risks/Complications
    • Recovery or Rehabilitation
    • History (e.g., when it was invented)
    • Society and culture (includes legal issues, if any)
    • Special populations
    • Other animals

I'm going through a GA review at present and the reviewer finds the use of the term "Indications" as a section heading confusing (in this case referring to a surgical procedure). Although indications is listed in MEDMOS, is there another (more layperson-friendly) term that is commonly used? Ian Furst (talk) 17:58, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

You might consider "uses" or "applications", but I agree that "indications" is the most precise term. DoctorJoeE review transgressions/talk to me! 18:08, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
I think they have a point as, though the most precise word, "indications" is not generally understood the way that say "diagnosis" is. If we are talking about Dental implant#Indications (as it now is), something like "Types and uses" best summarizes the content there. Johnbod (talk) 18:14, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Indications is not esoteric medical word, it is used in everyday parlance. Don't think more clumsy terms like "uses", "applications", "type" or even "reasons" (e.g. as seen on Dental_extraction#Reasons) are particularly needed. Only reasons adequately reproduces the meaning of the original word... but it doesn't sound particularly encyclopedic imo. Should use the term which the sources are using. Link to Indication (medicine) in the first sentence of the section if needed. Lesion (talk) 18:24, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Indications is not used in "everyday parlance" with the medical meaning where I live (mind you, neither is "parlance"). The link can't be used in a heading, though it should be used in the text. In what seems to be the example concerned here the section covers more than a narrow interpretation of "indications" in any case. Johnbod (talk) 18:32, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

The term confused user:TonyTheTiger who, from what I can see, has a lot of experience with reviewing articles. If it confused this user, I'm going to assume that it will confuse the average person. However, it's part of medmos so I didn't want to make a change that was non-uniform. I can't link it in the title as user:Johnbod said. Personally, I'm not sure the average reader would understand that an indication is "a valid reason" for an operation/procedure/test. Ian Furst (talk) 18:39, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

and Tony's American. There may well be a WP:ENGVAR issue here too. In the US drug packaging leaflets are apparently required by legislation to use the term; in the UK they are not and patient information will typically (normally, always?) avoid it, having a section called something like "What FOO tablets are and what they are used for". Another reason to be cautious in using the term, and maybe note an ENGVAR issue at MEDMOS. Johnbod (talk) 18:41, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Just took a poll in my house (n=2) and neither thought the meaning was intuitive. Ian Furst (talk) 18:46, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

=D wouldn't that be original research? But, I have to insist that indication(s) is not an esoteric word. I suspect that it is not originally a medical term... medicine has borrowed it from ordinary English. "Did the volcano give any indications that it was about to erupt?" Lesion (talk) 18:51, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I think, overall, that the recommended headings in the MEDMOS would have to be changed before your reviewer would be able to appropriately ask for this section to change... Lesion (talk) 18:58, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Lesion -- "indications" is the proper term, and can be linked to Indication (medicine) in the first sentence of the section if you are seriously concerned that readers will not understand; although its meaning becomes intuitively obvious once readers begin reading the section. Reducing descriptors to the lowest common denominator, at the expense of precision, is a mistake in an encyclopedia, IMHO. DoctorJoeE review transgressions/talk to me! 19:00, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
I was going to say "Of course it's "not originally a medical term"! But the medical meaning is different from the normal ones..." until I looked at the OED, who in fact say it "apparently" is the earliest sense, dating to 1541, though in fact the early citations seem closer to "symptom" in modern usage, as "indications" of what a patient's condition is, not what to do about it. I think Ian (and Tony) are right to think it is not very generally understood in its precise modern medical sense of "a valid reason to use a certain test, medication, procedure, or surgery" (our article, from Mirriam-Webster). You get on to the 2nd page of the 935 hits in a search for "indications" on the UK NHS website [6] before you hit a use in this technical sense. Johnbod (talk) 19:04, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

But that sense is still in use. "Night sweats might indicate malaria". This is the same sense as the nonmedical use: "Rumbling might indicate that the volcano is about to erupt". The other sense of the word, as something (e.g. sign/symptom or specific condition) which triggers something else to happen (e.g. a specific treatment choice over another), is also not confined to medicine. "A rumbling volcano indicates that you should quickly move to safety." I have difficulty understanding how there is any difference between the medical use and the nonmedical use of the term. Lesion (talk) 19:25, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

With respect, that's probably why you are a dentist, not a lexicographer. OED distinguishes 4 senses of the noun, of which the medical is 1b (also 4 for the verb). Try seeing how many of the 935 uses in the link above mean "a valid reason to use a certain test, medication, procedure, or surgery", or to take any form of action. Johnbod (talk) 19:34, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Even if we agreed that indications is a common enough term to let it stand, the next logical question would be, "Is contra-indications intuitive to the layperson?". We need to consider the terms together. Is "Reasons for use" and "Reasons not to use" any less percise? Maybe "Indications for use" Btw - what is the average reading comprehension level of an english speaking user? Ian Furst (talk) 19:49, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
"Contraindication" can be wikilinked just as easily as can "indication". "Reasons for use/not use" is clumsy and unencyclopedic; "indications for use" is redundant. DoctorJoeE review transgressions/talk to me! 19:59, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Personally, and rather perversely, I think "contra-indications", as effectively only a medical term (or at least a scientific/technical one), is rather less confusing to the average reader. The question is not just whether to use or not use, but whether to use and explain, as well as linking. If used, I think they should be explained, and if used in a header, explained right afterwards. Johnbod (talk) 20:05, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

K - I'll leave it as is for now and provide a link to this discussion for the reviewer. I don't think there will be a clear concensus on the terms anytime soon. If there is any desire for more discussion, I'm happy to be involved. As it stands now; 2 think it should change and 2 think it should stay the same. No agreement on an alternative. Ian Furst (talk) 20:25, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I much prefer "medical uses" and "recreational uses". Indications more refers to the position of oversight bodies such as the FDA and Health Canada. This is more legal and should be in the "society and culture section" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:16, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
You are thinking of "approved indications", which is a much narrower thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:28, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
I have made the change here [7] and will also bring to the talk page. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:20, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Agree with James. For style and an understandable categorization, its straightforward to name the main section "Uses" and subheadings (if relevant) "Medical", "Recreational", "Performance enhancing"/"Enhancing performance", etc. E.g., Methamphetamine#Uses & Amphetamine#Uses. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 22:22, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
I'll change to medical uses in the article. Thanks for reviewing everyone. Ian Furst (talk) 22:27, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
"Medical uses" is not always a suitable substitute for "indications". In this article particularly, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to use this language about a surgical procedure. Surgical sources use the term medical to mean non-surgical. Lesion (talk) 22:46, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes but that comes from a time when surgeons cut hair. Now they are doctors like the rest of us :-) Common usage is that medical means both "surgery and non-surgery" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:53, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
In a surgical context, medical may mean nonsurgical, and this occurs in modern sources. "Medical uses" makes less sense than "Reasons", which is the most accurate substitute so far suggested, not that I think substitution is required. Lesion (talk) 23:11, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
How about just "uses" than? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 06:35, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Answered on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles‎#Indications versus medical uses. Lesion (talk) 13:50, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

User adding many primary sources

Have concerns about this editor: [8] Lesion (talk) 14:32, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Every single one of their edits I have looked at begins with "A recent study showed that ... " cited with a primary source. Not checked to see if any of the authors' names are recurring. Lesion (talk) 14:35, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
There's a lot of that. It's way past time we had a bot marking citations of papers that PubMed identifies as having a particular publication type, as with: <PublicationTypeList><PublicationType>Journal Article</PublicationType></PublicationTypeList> (as opposed to Review, Systematic review, or Meta-analysis). I know we've talked about it before, but I don't think we ever actually raised a wp:Bot request for it. The approach is not without minor drawbacks, but we can't afford to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good here.
The {{cite journal}} template can take the parameter |type=Systematic review (e.g.) which is suitable for the purpose of capturing the information.

LeadSongDog come howl! 15:54, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Trimmed primary sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:14, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Incidentally, the number of uses of that phrase on this website is alarmingly high--more than 1500. Looks like a lot of MEDRS-enforcing cleanup is needed, although some of those are obviously false positives and/or have nothing to do with this Wikiproject. Jinkinson talk to me 02:35, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Fisiologia & Anatomia 1

Wikipedia:WikiProject Fisiologia & Anatomia 1 is a new WikiProject in the Portuguese language.
Wavelength (talk) 16:23, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

This exists because it is managed by a professor whose class is developing Portuguese Wikipedia. They are participating in the Wikipedia Education Program and are on English Wikipedia because classroom support software only exists here and not for Portuguese. I did not know what else to do with them so I invited them to be resident here in English Wikipedia since they wanted the tools. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:36, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your explanation.
Wavelength (talk) 19:09, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Blue. Yes these are work arounds that the non consistency between Wikipedia languages require. It has my support. Hopefully the WMF will increase consistency between languages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:02, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Redirecting article

I feel it might be best to redirect injury to trauma (medicine) as the later is much more comprehensive and the first serves very little purpose in the condition that it is in now. I placed a discussion of the matter here. Any input would be valued. Peter.Ctalkcontribs 16:32, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Trauma (medicine) means a significant injury not just any injury thus I do not think we should merge. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:41, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/BioCell_Collagen

Your opinions on this would be appreciated. SmartSE (talk) 12:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Psoriasis

Can I congratulate TylerDurden8823 here for getting psoriasis to GA? This is a huge topic, and while it was collaboration of the month he expanded the article almost single-handedly to an excellent standard. I bet y'all are itching to go have a look at the result. Well done! JFW | T@lk 20:47, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Jfd =) TylerDurden8823 (talk) 00:39, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Congrats. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:44, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Danger triangle of the face

Have never heard of this, and there's no citations in the article. Is it a hoax, a myth or an exaggeration? What's the deal? --Harizotoh9 (talk) 22:57, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

No it's real. A bit old but I have heard of it in a few textbooks. Lesion (talk) 23:19, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
I have added one of the 3 PubMed results to the article. Apparently there's an urban legend going around that says if you pop a pimple in the triangle (aka the "triangle of death") you can cause an infection because the bacteria travel to the back of the brain, and from there they travel to your sinuses. "If not treated right away, an infection in your sinus cavity can be very serious, leading to paralysis, loss of vision, or even death." [9] Jinkinson talk to me 00:03, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Probably over-dramatic. From what I remember in anatomy, the risk is of valveless facial veins allowing retrograde flow to the cavernous sinus or brain causing either brain abscess or cavernous sinus thrombosis. I've seen one of each in 20 years with little evidence it came from something like this. Neurosx may have something more to say about it, but it's relatively uncommon. This reference relates to MRSA but you get the idea. Its a review article that supports it. Ian Furst (talk) 00:24, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

They teach this in medical school. Should look to see if it has some truth. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:44, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Medical books supports it [10] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks guys. I was afraid it might be some kind of a hoax or myth. It should be re-written. Also what is the actual proper terminology? Maybe it should also be merged into another article? --Harizotoh9 (talk) 07:26, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I am happy with it named as it is. But yes could use work. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:31, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Any aspect of myth has to do with how common it is. As far as I know its extremely rare, and the article states that most people, but not all have valves in their facial veins. I think it would be good to get some numbers or incidence in there. It is a real phenomena, but Wikipedia should be careful so as not to exaggerate the danger. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 08:55, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with that ^ Lesion (talk) 11:41, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Added 5 references - may need some rewording. One of the original studies is from 1937 (as a link to the full original article) called it the danger area because 61% of cases of cavernous sinus thrombosis were the result of furuncles in the area. But the term comes from 1850's! Ian Furst (talk) 14:29, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Sex therapy article

Rmcoe (talk · contribs) significantly expanded the Sex therapy article today as part of a WP:Student assignment. I've cleaned up the content a bit, but the expansions could use the assessment of others from WP:MED (such as how the article should be organized and if any content and/or sources should be removed). Flyer22 (talk) 17:01, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

That is obviously a major improvement. It's gone from two general references (one weak) to more than a dozen inline citations. The sources include textbooks and academic journals. It covers aging, which is an area that our articles (especially sex-related articles) are often biased against. It's not perfect (what article is?), but it is a major improvement.
Also, I think it meets the WP:DYK rules for fivefold expansion. Perhaps someone would like to write a hook and nominate it? The main page benefits from having general interest articles like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Agreed. Flyer22 (talk) 17:54, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
The aging thing, though, that seems to be a wide academic bias; the vast majority of sexuality/sexual activity sources I come across focus on youth or those who are middle aged, but with the middle age portion usually only covering those in their 30s, 40s or early 50s (ages that are still young by many people's standards, especially those in their 30s)...if ages are mentioned or discussed. And this aspect, that sexuality/sexual activity research often does not focus on older adults, is also another piece that the Sex therapy article addresses. Flyer22 (talk) 18:14, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Writer's block

Any suggestions for a better opening sentence? "Anesthesia, or anaesthesia (from Greek αν-, an-, "without"; and αἴσθησις, aisthēsis, "sensation"), is a temporary, drug induced state the purpose of which is to reach one or all of the three endpoints of hypnosis, analgesia and muscle relaxation." Ian Furst (talk) 19:30, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I'd prefer the current opening paragraph. In the lead we ought to avoid medical jargon: for example, analgesia - even wikilinked - is not as good as "reduction of pain" for a lay reader. Also, from a diving medicine standpoint, air is an anaesthetic at sufficient depth (see Nitrogen narcosis) and Xenon is a usable anaesthetic at normal pressure. The anaesthetic effect of air under pressure doesn't fit well with our normal concept of a drug and narcosis is not a purposeful effect. I know it's not much help to your writer's block, but it might help to see as broad a picture as possible when trying to write definitions. --RexxS (talk) 20:06, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Also: "one or all" - never just two of them? Sorry! I presume "one or more" is better. Johnbod (talk) 20:51, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
""Anesthesia, or anaesthesia (from Greek αν-, an-, "without"; and αἴσθησις, aisthēsis, "sensation"), is a temporary, drug induced state, that removes awareness, pain and muscle tension. Happy editing, Myrtle G. Myrtlegroggins (talk) 22:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the ideas - back to the sandbox. Ian Furst (talk) 22:05, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Access to wikilibrary

A bit of a strange request here, but have been working on WP:ANATOMY articles recently and have hit a bit of a loggerhead: can't find any good sources for the history of organs. May seem like a strange issue, but per our recent changes to the guidelines (and common sense) I need some historical data to get organ articles up to GA... eg who discovered or first documented organs etc., but this is quite difficult now, requiring a lot of digging for each organ. Without the prospect of GA it is a little demotivating to make random edits that only somewhat improve articles. Finding comprehensive and reliable sources is really quite difficult.

I have heard that Wikilibrary can sometimes help with this, by providing online access to some sources? I'm not sure what sources are available, but I've used Google books to access some pages of these books and they are very high-quality and was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction? (such as how to add them to the library, or access them if they are already there?)

  • "Surgery : basic science and clinical evidence" Jeffrey A Norton
  • "Elsevier's integrated anatomy and embryology" Bruce Ian Bogart Victoria H Ort Philadelphia : Mosby/Elsevier, c2007

Kind regards, --LT910001 (talk) 08:39, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

LT910001 I have full online access to the first of those sources, and there are quite a few chapters on history in it. I'm not exactly sure on how we can best use that, but message/mail me and we can probably work something out. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 14:17, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Textbooks will be what you will need to use. The history section I always find hard. This one looks good [11] and this has a bit [12]. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:50, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Found this [13] The world's anatomists; concise biographies of anatomic masters, from 300 B. C. to the present time, whose names have adorned the literature of the medical profession, The book is from 1905 and not copyrighted. Might be something. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 11:30, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately that source has the wrong angle, but I'm looking for something better in the Hathitrust collection. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 11:35, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
If sources don't cover it, then it's not WP:DUE to include it, even if the suggested list for typical articles encourages it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:32, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks all for your help. The two books I am looking for are textbooks. Have put in a request at the state library to lend them to me, will see where that leads. Am uncomfortable using old books, as it is not uncommon for there to be some variance in the histories that they report (eg during the intervening investigators may point out it is A, not B, who discovered something). Am also uncomfortable about ignoring the history entirely - I feel it would be quite strange to nominate any article, from Gallbladder through Cervix through Palmaris longus muscle without at least some mention about who first documented it and the etymology of the term, and any changes in understanding over time. And that's not even mentioning the fact that almost all sources neglect the history in Chinese and Indian traditional medicines entirely, which have their own parallel anatomical histories. --LT910001 (talk) 00:40, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

As WhatamIdoing says I think that WP:UNDUE applies in the cases that history is difficult to find. As you point out historical sources may differ wildly, but I think that is something that occurs extensively in all historical fields. For some newer sources the following books might be relevant. Not all of them are strictly text-books, but they have extensive bibliographies (which can be viewed in Amazons quick-look feature). Also do we really need to use text-books, WP:MEDRS isn't applicable, and these should work according to WP:RS?:

  • Cambridge Illustrated History of Surgery, Harold Ellis
  • History Of Anatomy: THE POST-VESALIAN ERA Bilbiography [14], Persaud
  • Human Anatomy: A Visual History from the Renaissance to the Digital Age, Benjamin A. Rifkin & Michael J. Ackerman

-- CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 14:07, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Also there is a new text-book due out in June from Wiley called History of anatomy, ISBN:9781118524251 . Don't know how to properly link it, but it might be very relevant. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 14:27, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd try asking the Wellcome Library who specialize in the History of Medicine, & are very web & wiki-friendly. The stuff might not all be online, but it's a start. There will in fact be tons of stuff out there. You are I presume looking for the history of the development of the understanding of the functions of organs - all the big ones were very familiar to cooks etc from prehistoric times, but you don't want recipes I presume. Johnbod (talk) 17:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Public domain source

Found this ridiculously detailed source (was looking for something completely different):

It's from 1959, so it isn't new, but its quite a bit better than the 1905 source, and I would go as far as to say it's ideal. Public domain as well, so as long as it is cited we can use the direct text from the book. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 08:48, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Wow, spot on! That's exactly what it was looking for. I have been resorting to googling "[organ name] + Galen" or "[organ name]

+ Hippocrates" in order to at least get something relevant. --LT910001 (talk) 06:03, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Regenerative medicine

More eyes here would be nice. Seems to have a nice collection of dubious non-MEDRS noncompliant sourcing, WP:SYNTH, etc. Yobol (talk) 16:13, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

More eyes please

Adrenal fatigue and Chronic stress has become an area of contention, with dubious sources/links being added. I would appreciate more eyes on these articles. Thanks. Yobol (talk) 15:11, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused. Hypoadrenia redirects to Adrenal fatigue, but MedlinePlus says it's the same thing as hypoadrenalism, which is apparently, unlike Adrenal fatigue, a real disease. So should hypoadrenia be retargeted? Jinkinson talk to me 15:41, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
I think this is a case where this is a term which has been co-opted to mean the alt med entity "adrenal fatigue" now. I think historically it had a different meaning in medicine (see this for example), but I don't think it is a term widely used in now standard medicine, but used mainly by alt med types. Yobol (talk) 18:35, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections

This article has survived who knows how many years with no independent sources and, well, no anything except a table of individual events full of dead links. It needs a lot of work and if this is not done, I'll probably AFD it. Here are some sources to work with: [15] [16] Jinkinson talk to me 18:40, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 19/03

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Injection of Biomaterial, Alginate, into Ischemic Tissue Post Myocardial Infarction to Limit Left Ventricular Remodeling and Improve Function. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:04, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Gah. No. Needs inline refs. Needs primary sources removed. If there is anything left needs to be combined into another article. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:21, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
It's got copyvio written all over it, as far as I can tell; i'm just not sure which of the sources it's copied from. Jinkinson talk to me 01:35, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Merge all Diuresis stubs

When I reviewed and accepted a new article at AfC, Cold-induced diuresis, I discovered that all the "XXXXXXXX diuresis" articles listed on the Diuresis disambiguation page are brief stubs. I believe merging them all to Diuresis is a better option than having half a dozen closely related perma-stubs. The interrelationships between the different "varieties" of diuresis can then also be explained better. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:51, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Support, although there might be case for keeping "post-obstructive diuresis" separate. I would turn diuresis into a full article based on MEDMOS and merge all the MEDRS-supported content in there. JFW | T@lk 12:27, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
There is no Post-obstructive diuresis article, at least not under this title. The stub articles to be merged are: Forced diuresis, Immersion diuresis, Osmotic diuresis, Rebound diuresis and Cold-induced diuresis. I'm not sure what (if anything) should be done with the Polyuria article in this process. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:39, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
I have started a draft merged article at Draft:Diuresis (merging multiple stubs). I have just done a rough merge so far, the texts of the various source articles are still basically unchanged, just pasted into the draft page - please feel free to edit - the article needs a proper lead and repetition in the sections that used to be separate articles needs to be taken out, as does overlinking, etc. I really need to get to bed now, it's well past pumpkin time at my end. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 23:05, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
I need some help composing a suitable lead that describes diuresis in general before the article goes into detail in various subsections. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:01, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to Wikiconference USA

 
Please come if you can!

Hello! In New York City Friday 30 May - Sunday 1 June Wikiconference USA will be held as a national United States Wikipedia meetup hosted by Wikimedia New York City and Wikimedia DC. All are welcome to attend. Scholarship applications to cover travel expenses are accepted until the end of March and presentation submissions are requested until that time but can be accepted until closer to the conference.

In previous years New York City conferences have gathered 150 attendees. At this conference we are hoping for more people to attend.

It would be nice if participants and supporters of WikiProject Medicine could attend. Anyone with questions may contact me or any of the other organizers, or post on the conference website. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:04, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Wow, cool! Why didn't they spam this at the top of every page instead of Wikimania? After all, it's closer (both temporally and spatially). Jinkinson talk to me 22:21, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
Jinkinson WikiProject Medicine is an international forum. Most people here are not in the United States, so unfortunately, this conference is not accessible to most people on this board. The "they" who could spam this are volunteers. You could share this, if you like, by going to WP:GEONOTICE and making a request to target people in your geographical area. Right now, we have no particular plans to spam this to the entire United States because we have little money and no staff, so the plan was to do targeted outreach in places where people might be particularly interested. I posted this to about 15 places on and off Wikipedia where I personally go, and I tell others to also just post in likely places. Anyone is welcome, but this is definitely an event for and by Wikipedia enthusiasts. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:44, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
I will be there and would love to meet fellow medical Wikipedians. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:03, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
I hope I'll be able to go, but I'm not sure yet (I'll be in the area for a family thing, which is convenient). Jinkinson talk to me 15:18, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Runner's knee?

This article is currently a redirect to Chondromalacia patellae, but at least as far as I was aware Iliotibial band syndrome is a more common cause of runner's knee. Some sources state runner's knee being the common name of at least 4 distinct injuries. Anyone out there who can point me to a good source so I can create a proper disambiguation page? The best I found is this review from 1999 [17], which states it is equivalent to Patellofemoral pain syndrome -- CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 09:56, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Dab pages aren't supposed to be sourced. I suggest starting with the names you're already aware of, and letting it expand organically as other people find more. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:52, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Done, thanks. If anyone has more in-depth knowledge, please add to the dab CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 15:42, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Added plica syndrome. Hope you don't mind unpublished anecdotes as references on medical DABs.  "Runners-knee"-related pain started after a distance runner had completed 2 marathons. On three separate occasions with different doctors, the knee pain was misdiagnosed as either patellar chondromalacia or PFPS based upon an MRI, a simple X-ray, and/or a CT-scan. Still unsatisfied with each dx after using wikipedia and linked sources to self-ddx and rule these out, he saw a 4th doctor that finally suspected plica syndrome based upon an X-ray and an MRI. He confirmed it during arthroscopic knee surgery and excised 2 plica. Following that surgery ~5 years ago, that runner (who happens to be me) completed another 2 marathons without even a single recurrence of "Runner's knee" type pain...
I obviously don't have much faith in some doctors as a result of that.

I'm sure there's an actual medical review which includes this since its already in the "see also" of every one of the articles above, but I'm too lazy to check pubmed atm. I'd suggest just leaving it there based upon WP:IGNOREALLRULES and the likelihood that I didn't spend time writing this paragraph because I wanted to create a pointless fabrication. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 18:50, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
I also came across the article because I've had Iliotibial band syndrome about a year ago, but first looked at it today. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 19:58, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing is correct to point out that disambiguation pages should not have references. However WP:DABREF indicates that the target articles should have appropriate references. Therefore articles such as Chondromalacia patellae and Plica syndrome should state that "Runner's knee" is an alternative name, and a reference should be provided.
Seppi333, I don't agree with your application of WP:IAR. Axl ¤ [Talk] 13:28, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Iliotibial band syndrome, Patellofemoral pain syndrome/chondromalacia patellae are the only ones I can find which are called Runner's knee in the literature.
Reading up a bit, there are sources out there calling plica syndrome the great imitator of knee injuries, maybe it would be better to add it to the differential diagnosis section of the articles?
Finally, I have a source stating that Chondromalacia patellae is an older name for Patellofemoral pain syndrome, for which there are two separate articles. Anyone know better? CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 15:11, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
PMID 19887299 I probably should've just checked for reviews instead. That took just as long to do. "Runner's knee" isn't really a technical/medical term for disorders – it's just a catch-all and informal term referring to overuse injuries typically seen in runners, particularly those associated with chronic pain along the medial or lateral aspect of the patella.
Also, @Axl: could I ask you to continue your review on the amph FAC if you have time over the next two weeks? It'll probably close after that. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 17:57, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Side note Jumper's knee

I also came across this article, which redirects to Patellar tendinitis, which is correct and all, but there is nothing on that page about differential diagnosis in younger individuals with Sinding-Larsen and Johansson syndrome, which in turn shares an article with Osgood–Schlatter disease. I think this is an oversight and plan to split the articles. Thoughts? CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 19:42, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Done CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 15:11, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH on amphetamine articles

Dosenfant (talk · contribs · count) has been adding synthesis to amphetamine articles wrt Adderall composition; he's also been deleting the 5-ht toxidrome OD symptom, but that's unrelated to WP:SYNTH.

His edits may need to be checked/watched on other articles. I'll likely end up taking this to the OR noticeboard if he continues. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 18:03, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

What the heck? There's no account with the username Dosefant. [18] Was that a typo, User:Seppi333? Jinkinson talk to me 18:25, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Oops, thanks for fixing that. I meant to link/ping Dosenfant. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 19:03, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
[1] added Talk:Dextroamphetamine#Dextro_:_Levo_ratio_in_Adderall above.
I contributed a change to the articles Adderall and amphetamine, based on what was already written in dextroamphetamine. The statement(s) at that time were, that Adderall would have a D:L amphetamine ratio of 3:1, which was obviously wrong. The current statment 3:1 ratio of D:L amphetamine salts is true, but rather useless, as it mixes up active and inactive ingredients. The 72.7% dextroamphetamine in Adderall where at least mentioned in the book The Amphetamine Debate, although I'm rather sceptic about the quality of the statement there, cause it mistakes dexamphetamine and lisdexamphetamine (might be a typo /autocorrect of a typo as well as simply bad quality) (Moore, Elaine.The Amphetamine Debate: The Use of Adderall, Ritalin and Related Drugs for Behavior Modification, Neuroenhancement and Anti-Aging Purposes. McFarland, 2010, p. 90.). I myself calculated ratios therefore (but got different values), see Talk:Dextroamphetamine#Dextro_:_Levo_ratio_in_Adderall, and e.g. User:Seppi333 didn't reply till today on that. See also User_talk:Edward_Bower#D:L-amphetamine_ratio_of_Adderall, because user:Edward Bower has introduced the statement originally. He seems to be inactive, so he likely won't tell what his source was.
Seppi333 confuses having a lot of wikipedia contributions with having or even beeing a reliable, published source. see Talk:Amphetamine#5-HT toxidrome. He simply mistakes amphetamines with amphetamine, he hasn't shown up with a single source simply telling amphetamine overdose might cause serotonin syndrome. Best, --Richard (talk) 22:27, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Seppi's response
Have you bothered reading the most official/direct sources for this information?
"11 DESCRIPTION
ADDERALL XR is a once daily extended-release, single-entity amphetamine product. ADDERALL XR combines the neutral sulfate salts of
dextroamphetamine and amphetamine, with the dextro isomer of amphetamine saccharate and d,l-amphetamine aspartate monohydrate. The
ADDERALL XR capsule contains two types of drug-containing beads designed to give a double-pulsed delivery of amphetamines, which
prolongs the release of amphetamine from ADDERALL XR compared to the conventional ADDERALL (immediate-release) tablet formulation.
Each capsule contains: 5 mg 10 mg 15 mg 20 mg 25 mg 30 mg
Dextroamphetamine Saccharate 1.25 mg 2.5 mg 3.75 mg 5.0 mg 6.25 mg 7.5 mg
Amphetamine Aspartate Monohydrate 1.25 mg 2.5 mg 3.75 mg 5.0 mg 6.25 mg 7.5 mg
Dextroamphetamine Sulfate USP 1.25 mg 2.5 mg 3.75 mg 5.0 mg 6.25 mg 7.5 mg
Amphetamine Sulfate USP 1.25 mg 2.5 mg 3.75 mg 5.0 mg 6.25 mg 7.5 mg
Total amphetamine base equivalence 3.1 mg 6.3 mg 9.4 mg 12.5 mg 15.6 mg 18.8 mg

is from Shire's December 2013 FDA medication guide for Adderall XR
(reformatting that as a readable table)

Each capsule contains: 5mg 10mg 15mg 20mg 25mg 30mg
Dextroamphetamine Saccharate 1.25 mg 2.5 mg 3.75 mg 5.0 mg 6.25 mg 7.5 mg
Amphetamine Aspartate Monohydrate 1.25 mg 2.5 mg 3.75 mg 5.0 mg 6.25 mg 7.5 mg
Dextroamphetamine Sulfate USP 1.25 mg 2.5 mg 3.75 mg 5.0 mg 6.25 mg 7.5 mg
Amphetamine Sulfate USP 1.25 mg 2.5 mg 3.75 mg 5.0 mg 6.25 mg 7.5 mg
Total amphetamine base equivalence 3.1 mg 6.3 mg 9.4 mg 12.5 mg 15.6 mg 18.8 mg

and

Amphetamine, in the enantiomer ratio present in ADDERALL® (immediate-release)(d- to l- ratio of 3:1), ...

is REPEATEDLY stated in Barr's generic Adderall December 2007 FDA medication guide
(the most recent label for any Adderall IR pharmaceutical).

I don't dispute the validity of your statement. My problems with it are:
  • 2.3% is insignificantly small to make this needlessly more complicated for the average reader.
  • The formulation is obviously intentionally based upon the ratio of salts.
  • You don't cite it.


As for 5-HT toxidrome, all I can say to that is you apparently can't read. That quote says amph OD induces a "syndrome" with some of its symptoms secondary to "serotonin excess." Serotonin toxicity symptoms manifest on a spectrum, not as a binary state (i.e., an indicator function). This is why your statement "No, it's not a pefect match, a serotonin syndrom is not just an excess of serotonin" is wrong. Serotonin syndrome is just a toxic overdose of serotonin (technically, neuronal activity).
You're intentionally misrepresenting my statement that "I wrote the section and read the sources" as an argument from authority. I'll just be explicit and say what it was meant to suggest:
  • To the best of my knowledge, everything in this section is sound and has perfect text-source integrity
  • I'm accountable for the verifiability of the content.
  • It's laughable that you're giving me a lecture on the difference between amphetamine and substituted amphetamines.

Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 23:18, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

2nd Response of Dosenfant
Adderall: Anyway, your complaint is a self-attack, as you only filled the introduction with more details. Never have you simply added a citation needed tag at the 72.7%, instead you have attacked me with the words "His edits may need to be checked/watched on other articles.". What a nice guy you are!
You could have easily shortened your Adderal answer to zero words, as it says nothing new. Have a look on Talk:Dextroamphetamine#Dextro_:_Levo_ratio_in_Adderall, that's not a small gap. Just ignore the probem? And if you want to say 72.7% are roughly 75% than write "roughly". But you still need a source that tells you the D:L ratio (without salts, roughly or accurate). Will you show up with one, different from The Amphetamine Debate that I mentioned?
5-HT toxidrome: A syndrome whose most prominent feature is an adrenergic storm with some of its symptoms secondary to serotonin excess (so just amended by an obviously smaller serotonin excess compared to the adrenergic and dopaminergic). To call that serotonin syndrome is just false. Found words "excess of serotonin" in Serotonin syndrome and in paper about amphetamine overdose -> amphetamine overdose may cause serotonin syndrome = SYNTH.
amphetamine is considerably less effective in elevating plasma 5-HT compared with fenfluramine, MDMA, and methamphetamine, amphetamine is a less potent drug out of amphetamines regarding 5-HTP excess. Btw, fenfluramine and MDMA are agonists at 5-HT receptors, too. That might contribute to their serotonin toxicity, so it's not clear if it's just an elevated serotonin level that causes serotonin syndrome of amphetamines (I guess agonism is the central mechanism of action for a serotonin syndrome caused by agonists as LSD).
Time does matter: It is healthy to have a pulse rate of 200bpm for a short while on a run, but dangerously if it takes longer.
Your continuum theory is just as good as fever = hyperpyrexia, intensity above some cut-off does matter. If you don't show up with a citable source saying "amphetamine causes serotonin syndrom" (mild or whatever), then take it out of the article or do cite literally. Is a serotonin syndrom technically just an excess of serotonin? You know a case of a human with diagnosis of an acute serotonin syndrome, and anybody measured the theorized excess of serotonin? Technically it's just differential diagnosis.
It would be easy to circumnavigate the problems caused by your interpretation of the "cited" source, just by citing it: "an excess of serotonin" (add "and related symptoms" if you want) instead of serotonin syndrom/toxidrome in Amphetamine#Overdose. But that does require that you think critically about your own contributions. Btw, I have no doubts in your ability to read.
"It's laughable"... But it was necessary ("it lists MDMA right next to it", where it is superclass substituted amphetamines. After that SYNTH "but this could easily happen given a high enough ("extremely large") overdose for ~100% SERT phosphorylation" and again that's a highly unlikely speculation and OR).
partly edited --Richard (talk) 10:45, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

--Richard (talk) 09:18, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Seppi's 2nd response
  • Serotonin syndrome:

The scope of all the policies you've stated so far, WP:PRIMARY, WP:OR, and WP:SYNTH, is limited to article content. Non-article content is completely outside the scope of these. If I said amphetamine is a panacea that cures all diseases known to man without any reference at all, I can do it right here on WT:MED, and it's perfectly OK as long as my statement adheres to the talk page guidelines. I don't care if you think I'm wrong about any statement I've made, or even if you misrepresent some of my statements like you've done in your reply above.

I do care that the amphetamine article strictly adheres to these policies (and to a lesser extent adderall/dextroamphetamine as well, since they're not currently FA-nominated). I cited a review and provided a quote containing a statement which I've asserted is equivalent to the definition of serotonin syndrome. Specifically, I've said that it's defined as a toxidrome model involving excessive serotonin activity in neurons. If you know this isn't the definition of that concept, you should be correcting me with a reference; in which case, I would have to find a suitable replacement reference or remove the phrase/citation from the article. On the other hand, if you aren't familiar with serotonin syndrome, you should simply ask me to provide you with a reference which defines it as this model.

I'll let you decide who provides the reference for this.

  • Enantiomer ratios:

instead you have attacked me with the words "His edits may need to be checked/watched on other articles.. What a nice guy you are!

I'm delightful, aren't I?  

You could have easily shortened your Adderal answer to zero words, as it says nothing new.

No, I actually explained to you, in the bulleted list, why I have an issue with it and suggested how you could correct the policy breach of WP:SYNTH.


As for the ratio you want to add, I don't really care if it's added or not; I think it's useless, but I won't delete it if you add it with an appropriate citation. However, I will revert it if you change the current salt ratio text/reference instead of adding it with the reference separately.

Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 17:25, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

3rd Response of Dosenfant

I know about the scope of WP:SYNTH,... I'm not a newby, although I have less contributions to en.wikipedia.org as I have on de.wikipedia.org. So if you're stating here just small talk, you are totally right, but I would add that this talk page is not inteded for small talk. I criticise your edits on the pages themselves, WP:SYNTH,... are applying, cause its in their scope. Your edit misses a justification without talk here (no word of serotonin toxydrome/syndrome in given cite in amphetamine) and that on article talk pages. You would have had either to add a sufficient cite that doesn't need your vulnerable interpretation, or I may have refered to your interpretation's justification here in my critic.

I agree, your 1st reply (to me) could only be shortened to the bullet list. It doesn't matter in lead how a manufacturer is describing its formulation, it's obviously useless for any reader to state any ratio between a mixture of active and inactive ingedients (e.g. salt-ratio) in lead. I never removed the note in the article about salt-ratio, and I won't do. I will shorten lead again and add the cite.

Changing "serotonin toxidrome" to "excess of serotonin" is the maximum what you can take out of all mentioned cites from the given reference.

--Richard (talk) 09:04, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. Diff Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 18:10, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

How many types of cohort studies are there?

I was surprised to discover that while prospective cohort study and retrospective cohort study are not redlinks, longitudinal cohort study is. Does anyone know if maybe two of these terms are synonymous with each other or something? It seems like the two words have distinct meanings in epidemiology, so there should probably be 2 separate pages on longitudinal and prospective studies. Jinkinson talk to me 17:20, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding like a dumb-ass, this is my understanding of it. I'm no epidemiologist. A cohort study defines a group (the group is the cohort) and observes them. It can be cross-sectional (meaning the group at any given point in time), prospective or retrospective. I believe longitudinal in this instance is synonymous with prospective. There are also matched cohort studies, when long-term observations is impractical, unethical or impossible. For instance, does eating fast-food lead to greater heart disease. It's tough to control all the variables, other than fast food consumption that contribute to heart disease so they match the patients based on other risk factors with one match being high fast-food consumption and the other low (edit: then following them going forward for the occurrence of heart disease). In this sense, the cohort is cross-sectional (looking at previous behavior) the longitudinal. A prospective randomized trial would create an inception cohort of people, then randomize them to 2 treatment groups. Question from the peanut butter test? Does that help? Ian Furst (talk) 17:33, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
In that case, should longitudinal cohort study be redirected to prospective cohort study? Jinkinson talk to me 17:43, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I think so. Ian Furst (talk) 18:08, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
edited example above Ian Furst (talk) 18:22, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
A longitudinal study is a study that observes subjects over a period of time. Because longitudinal studies typically require planning, most of these are prospective studies. But there is no reason that a longitudinal study cannot be retrospective. For instance, with the advent of electronic medical records, plenty of folk are doing retrospective longitudinal studies using patient medical histories. --Mark viking (talk) 18:36, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Block of text being added to a bunch of articles

This same block of text [19] is being added to a dozen or more articles [20]. Thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:35, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

From a medical point of view, this would set the precedent to add the thousands of potential allergens with the potential to cause contact dermatitis to the hundreds of pages that describe the anatomy or specific topics of dermatitis. From an editorial point of view, it seems contrary to the concept of original writing on Wikipedia to cut and paste the same sentence in many articles. If there are sufficient sources to create it, would it be better to create a page on balsam of peru including it's allergenic potential. I've never heard of this stuff. Common elsewhere in the world? same as friar's balsam? Ian Furst (talk) 12:40, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Insertion of that text into generic articles such as "Stomatitis" and "Cheilitis" gives undue weight. The information should only be in "Balsam of Peru". Axl ¤ [Talk] 13:13, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks yes that is my position. Just at the one article. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:15, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Imo, articles like stomatitis and cheilitis should mention as many of the most common allergens as possible. But ofc we need MEDRS sources to support it. Note also that cheilitis already mentioned balsam of peru before these edits (in Cheilitis#Eczematous_cheilitis) but only in one short sentence. That should probably be enough, so no need to duplicate info there with these edits. Support inclusion of a similar one sentence mention on other articles if relevant and if MEDRS sources used. Probably relevant on stomatitis, not sure about oral ulceration. @Epeefleche: courtesy notification. Many thanks, Lesion (talk) 13:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
To Ian and Axl, have a look at Burning_mouth_syndrome#Other_causes_of_an_oral_burning_sensation, if the number of allergens (or in that case substance which cause a burning sensation) gets out of hand, it does not take up much room to stick them all in a table... we should try to give encyclopedic coverage after all. Lesion (talk) 13:52, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes it is more about the amount of text. How is this relevant on the Anusol "Balsam of Peru is used in food and drink for flavoring, in perfumes and toiletries for fragrance, and in medicine and pharmaceutical items for healing properties" [21] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:54, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

It sounds like a common allergen: "Balsam of Peru (BOP) is a well-known contact allergen that is one of the most prevalent in the United States." from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23857009 . Lesion (talk) 14:17, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes some content is fine. It is the degree. I hope we have figured it out. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:22, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm interested that even our editors most knowledgeable in this area are not familiar with Balsam of Peru, given its top-five allergen status. But all the more reason for appropriate mention. Clearly, only mentioning it in the article itself is less than ideal. But I agree that mentions should be appropriately trimmed. I think Doc James and I have trimmed it well in a couple of articles, and Lesion raised an article where it was less well placed than another related article (it is a problem in some dental cements and related dental products). BTW, in its crude form, has even been banned from some products.--Epeefleche (talk) 15:35, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
=) not totally hopeless, wiki already mentioned this on some articles like Patch test (medicine)#Common allergens and cheilitis. Per Axl's comment (see below), on article like stomatitis etc, probably better to mention this substance in the context of a list of common allergens. In each case, need a MEDRS source to support specifically that this allergen causes that condition. Lesion (talk) 17:10, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Lesion, the reference for the list in Burning_mouth_syndrome#Other_causes_of_an_oral_burning_sensation is Oral and maxillofacial medicine: the basis of diagnosis and treatment. This is a generic textbook and is a suitable source for this information in this article.
This edit includes four references:-
[1][2][3][4]
  1. ^ "Balsam of Peru contact allergy". Dermnetnz.org. December 28, 2013. Retrieved March 5, 2014.
  2. ^ Gottfried Schmalz, Dorthe Arenholt Bindslev (2008). Biocompatibility of Dental Materials. Springer. ISBN 9783540777823. Retrieved March 5, 2014.
  3. ^ Thomas P. Habif (2009). Clinical Dermatology. Elsevier Health Sciences. ISBN 978-0323080378. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
  4. ^ Edward T. Bope, Rick D. Kellerman (2013). Conn's Current Therapy 2014: Expert Consult. Elsevier Health Sciences. ISBN 9780323225724. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
The first reference is specifically about balsam of Peru. It is not suitable for generic articles about "Stomatitis" or "Dermatitis". The other three references are generic texts. In these, balsam of Peru is mentioned as one of a list of substances. To describe only balsam of Peru gives it undue weight. If it is to be included, it should only be as part of a list. There is certainly no need to state "Balsam of Peru is used in food and drink for flavoring, in perfumes and toiletries for fragrance, and in medicine and pharmaceutical items for healing properties." Axl ¤ [Talk] 15:41, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
OK yes agree. On stomatitis, I have started a short list of allergens so there is not undue weight. Whole article needs much work... I have used "DermNet NZ" in the past, it is referenced, although not an ideal source there is lot of good info there. Lesion (talk) 16:26, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
  • If you look at the indicated diff, it simply jumps out that the real problem from an editorial standpoint is the fact that nearly everything that was pre-existing in that section lacked any refs whatsoever. People reading that article should see RS-supported information, which should include known causes (referenced to RSs), in language they can understand that is accurate -- that should be our focus. The non-RS supported material should either be properly supported, or deleted. I've tagged it in the meantime. Much of the article suffers from the same malady ... and not from the inclusion of reference to a top-5 allergen, supported by RSs.--Epeefleche (talk) 18:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
As to the refs -- please note that "Major academic publishers (e.g., Elsevier, Springer Verlag, Wolters Kluwer, and Informa) publish specialized medical book series with good editorial oversight; volumes in these series summarize the latest research in narrow areas, usually in a more extensive format than journal reviews." The text are perfectly excellent RSs, and should not be deleted (keeping the refs in allows the reader to jump to the ref for further info).
Adding any other "top 5" allegens would of course be appropriate. Feel free. But that's not cause for deletion of this top-5 allergen, RS supported.
That whole article is in a poor state. Not convinced the current layout is the best approach for this broad scoped article... A layout like cheilitis might be better, which doesn't have any causes section, instead mentioning the causes as the different types are discussed. Lesion (talk) 20:19, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Have a look at p.566 and 567, from Middleton's Allergy: Principles and Practice (2013). LeadSongDog come howl! 17:52, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Interesting - Made up of 25 chemicals including cinnamon. I regularly see cinnamon allergy in the mouth. Says that it's in eugenol too but the eugenol page doesn't list it. I wonder how many products actually have it there or if the allergy is due to one particular chemical of the 25 that are in it. Will have to do some more reading. Thx for the info Epeefleche Ian Furst (talk) 19:22, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Found a good review [22] and downloaded the text on BOP to my sandbox. Ian Furst (talk) 19:38, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Ian -- excellent. Looking forward to your further thoughts. Also -- fyi, patch tests commonly check for cinnamon, and where one is allergic to BOP but not cinnamon (which I can attest happens), one knows that it is one of the other known or unknown elements that is causative.--Epeefleche (talk) 20:55, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Proposing merger of congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation into congenital pulmonary airway malformation. See Talk:Congenital pulmonary airway malformation#Merger proposal. Thanks! EricEnfermero HOWDY! 22:28, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Oil pulling

Due to the recent surge in popularity and discussion about this topic, this page is beginning to receive some attention from editors who are citing primary studies. This article would likely benefit from some more eyes and I wouldn't mind some assistance in making it a more robust article discussing the safety/efficacy of the practice. I've started working on it, but it has a long way to go. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 03:24, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

New article needs a good scrubbing

Please take a look at Medical Family Therapy, it's a new article with many layout and formatting errors, bring your industrial grade mops and brooms! It's full of inline external links, malformed wikilinks and unnecessary html markup, amongst other errors. The content as such also needs to be evaluated in terms of the standards applicable to medical articles. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:24, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Request for some extra opinions

McGrigor then concluded that women’s brains were more analogous to infants, thus deeming them inferior at the time.[8] To further these claims of female inferiority and silence the feminists of the time, other anthropologists joined in on the studies of the female skull. These cranial measurements are the basis of what is known as craniology. These cranial measurements were also used to draw a connection between women and black people. French craniologist, F. Pruner, went on to describe this relationship as: “The Negro resemble[ing] the female in his love for children, his family, and his cabin

  1. Is this notable? Please read Human_skull#Sexual_dimorphism. I don't know of the controversy or scientists but I feel strange having some person's racist opinions left in the article unless it is particularly notable. Is this not a 19th-century example of speculation? (which does not satisfy WP:MEDRS)
  2. Cervix#Cervical mucus would value some additional opinions as to what does/does not satisfy WP:MEDRS. Cheers, --LT910001 (talk) 05:31, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
This is more a social and cultural / historical issue rather than a medical one. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:58, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
I suspect that the information about cervical mucus' contents is correct, but we do have a strong preference for sources from the current century. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:38, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
As the point on phrenology, yes that section is actually fairly representative of the debate at the time. However, that section has some pretty obvious weight issues when it comes to craniology/phrenology. While that debate is absolutely noteworthy, being of serious historical, cultural, and empirical value (especially as regards the evolution of the evolved sciences) its proper place is at Phrenology (and to a lesser extent Anthropometry), not the article focused on the current scientific understanding of the human cranium and its relevance to the brain. There should be little more than a brief reference to those pseudo-scientific analogs to modern science and whatever reference is left there should be represented as thoroughly debunked by modern developments. That's not the only statement in that section which is troubling -- there's also this: "Some authors consider this size difference to partly explain the alleged difference in average intelligence between men and women, and between various human races." That particular claim is so far outside the scientific mainstream (and has been for most of the modern era) that I don't even know where to start. More particular to our purposes here, said claim is not supported to any significant weight by the scientific consensus presented by the vast majority of sources available on the subject. On the subject of sources, if you are looking for a good text to contextualize this debate and the evolution of scientific understanding of the subject, you can do a lot worse than Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man, which, though a little dated, is still a definitive work on deconstructing this and several other types of antiquated psuedoscience on intellect that developed from the same tradition. Anyway, my time is limited so I'll not edit that section immediately, but if no one does soon, I certainly will. It should present little problem; justifying that change on the basis of policy and the sources will be the easiest task any Wikipedian ever took on. Snow (talk) 17:37, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

New articles for review:

Please see Sex disparity in stroke care and Decellularized and Recellularized Hearts as a Therapeutic Strategy for Heart Failure. Title length aside, are they notable topics that don't duplicate existing topics? --Animalparty-- (talk) 01:46, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes students. They do not understand the manual of style or referencing requirements. They often just fill Wikipedia full of essays. Here is the rest of the class [23] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:36, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
A better solution might be if they posted their essays on Wikiuniversity, and any relevant essays were then transferred to Wikipedia. --LT910001 (talk) 08:52, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes agree. Soon someone will try to add these to the see also sections of main articles. We need a rule that see also sections are not to collect student essays. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:54, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
An "essay", as in {{essay-like}}, is a mistake I've never seen anyone make as part of a class project. They might post something that reads like a paper for school, but "essay" in that tag means a personal reflection on your feelings or opinions about the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:50, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks WAID for keeping an eye on my English :-) Yes I mean that it reads like and is formatted like a paper for school. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:20, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Your English is perfectly correct here. This is one of those annoying times when the wikijargon means something else entirely. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I actually think some student articles are decent, but need some reformatting/tweaking/re-citing/MEDRS-related pruning to be good. I started copyediting an article that I renamed to Neurobiological effects of physical exercise, which was a poorly titled class project, but contained some interesting and relatively significant findings IMO. I'll probably have to recite most of the sources before I'm done with it though; I'm also still in the process of cutting things out. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 21:04, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

MSM blood donor controversy

Could some editors check out MSM blood donor controversy? I think some of the statistics might be out of context, implying MSM are infected at much higher rates, but perhaps they are spot on. Sportfan5000 (talk) 01:36, 20 March 2014 (UTC) [WP:BAN 03:11, 24 March 2014 (UTC)]

Yes MSM are infected at a higher rate in much of the world. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:39, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm aware the rates can be higher, I'm wondering if the statistics Wikipedia is reporting are both accurate, and presented with due weight. Sportfan5000 (talk) 02:08, 20 March 2014 (UTC) [WP:BAN 03:11, 24 March 2014 (UTC)]
Sportfan5000 Could you post any specific concern on the talk page of that article? What gave you pause? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:17, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Reform of citation structure for all Wikimedia projects

If you're thinking about attending Wikimania and this discussion would interest you, please consider adding your name to the proposal as a possible attendee. That list helps the organisers decide which proposals to include in the program. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:07, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Tool Labs is down

Some of the tools there aren't working. [24] [25] Anyone know why (or how we can get this fixed)? Jinkinson talk to me 18:23, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes editor tools break on a regular basis. Usually they came back in a bit. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:32, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

What happen is all the tools were transfered to a new server and each tool has to be reinstalled and restarted. I have run into technical difficulies getting the template filler working again. I am still working on it. Boghog (talk) 18:23, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

  Fixed (at least the citation template filler) After some required tweaks to the configuration files, the template filler is up and running again. Boghog (talk) 11:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
  Thank you--Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 11:52, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

People adding primary sources of which they are the author

These two users

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 15:49, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

The people are [26] and [27]. Jinkinson talk to me 20:31, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

So Sportfan5000 is a sock of Benjiboi

I'm pretty surprised. Is anyone else, or did you see this coming? It seems like he was (at least by banned-user standards) such a constructive contributor. Jinkinson talk to me 17:50, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Posting here was very strange. So no not surprised. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 17:56, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
You mean it was strange for me to post here, or strange for him to? Jinkinson talk to me 18:08, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
I mean his posting here was strange. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:00, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Student Ob/Gyn writing project

At WP:Education noticeboard#OBGYN bootcamp project, there's a very promising student project that will edit pages in that area. I'm going to point the instructor here, so that she or her students can let editors in this project know what pages will be involved. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:33, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

thanks Tryptofish. The course will be convening next week, and I expect to have students identify what topics they are interested in at that time. I will look forward to guidance from the community! Happy Tuesday!Celesteroyce (talk) 03:08, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Local Skin Memory

Dear editors: Here's another of those abandoned Afc submissions. Is this a notable topic, or should it be deleted as a stale draft? —Anne Delong (talk) 11:58, 25 March 2014 (UTC) :I think this one may be worthwhile turning into start class. The last reference is from Nature Immunology and is a good reference (I think). Seems like a worthwhile topic. Unless someone else has an interest in immunology/dermatology I'll volunteer to get it to start class, assuming there is not a similiar (differently named) page and this is not just someone trying to promote a neologisms Ian Furst (talk) 12:34, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Disregard previous. The topic is already covered in Allergic_contact_dermatitis#Memory_Response although the last reference would be a good addition. I'll add it in if not already listed. Ian Furst (talk) 12:36, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. If there's no other useful content to be transferred besides the reference, I guess we can let this one go. If any text is transferred, we can always change this into a redirect. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:03, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

The info is already convered in the article imo. Ian Furst (talk) 21:55, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
It's gone! —Anne Delong (talk) 03:20, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Scope

Are (deadly) poisonous mushrooms within the scope of WP:MED? The tag was recently added to the talk of Amanita phalloides with the rationale "WikiProj med has a toxicology taskforce". If this project agrees, I could add this tag to all species on List of deadly fungi. Sasata (talk) 14:55, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Since that'd make them biotoxins by def., I think it merits low importance med article ratings. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 16:46, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
Ottawa has already spread this discussion over many message boards. The last discussion occured at [[28]] and the relevent guidelines is at [[29]]. Since the actual toxin is identified within the article and covered by the tox task force I think we should let the fungi task force take ownership of the actual deadly fungi. Mrfrobinson (talk) 20:52, 23 March 2014 (UTC) 12:31, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Editor review requested for Wikipedia Education Program

user:Salubrious Toxin

The WP:Wikipedia Education Program has an oversight system in which the only people who can make course pages for classes are those who have done a tutorial and have had their Wikipedia editing experience checked by two other Wikipedians. There is a user who has done the tutorial but has so little editing experience that it is difficult for others to judge. Because what he has done is related to medicine, I thought that it would be better for me to ask here at the medicine board than on the education board for someone to give a second review of him. I met him in person as a first review, and in my opinion he knows enough about Wikipedia to be responsive to any concerns which arise. He wants to start a Wikipedia club at his medical school and I would like to support him in this. If he had the userright then he would start a course page and begin advertising for an in-person meetup for an editathon at his school, and have his classmates register for the editathon through this course page.

If anyone has comments, please share them at his request on the education noticeboard. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:47, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes a Wikipedia club at a medical school would be excellent. There was one in Quebec but it fizzled out shortly after being started. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:43, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Looking at these edits [30] why was he added a bunch of 1980s primary sources as references to Wikipedia? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:36, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Salubrious Toxin Your work is being evaluated. Can you comment? Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:54, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Jmh649 When I first made these edits, I thought I was supposed to use primary sources instead of secondary sources. Sorry! User talk:Bluerasberry explained this to me at our meeting. Thank you for posting the editing guides on my talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Salubrious Toxin (talkcontribs) 11:40, 25 March 2014‎
  Resolved

I granted this user "course instructor" rights as noted on the education noticeboard. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:03, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

user:Celesteroyce

Hello everyone. I have spent more than an hour talking with an instructor at a nearby medical school about her wish to have her OBGYN class contribute to Wikipedia. I plan to organize an in-person workshop with them and support them otherwise in their engagement with Wikipedia.

This instructor has no prior Wikipedia experience nor do the students, and for that reason, it would be difficult for the people coordinating the Education program to evaluate their stated plans and say whether they should have the userright to set up a course page. Could I ask for someone here to review what she has proposed to do as written in OBGYN bootcamp project on the noticeboard and give a comment there about the circumstances under which the instructor for this class can have a userright to have a course page? Thanks to anyone who can review this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

  Resolved

Thanks for comments. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:28, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Medical Family Therapy

Was accepted through AFC, then nominated for deletion at AFD. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medical Family Therapy. Looks notable, but needs more independent sources per JzG's remarks at the AFD. Here's a few I found: http://www.unl.edu/gradstudies/prospective/programs/Cert_MedicalFamilyTherapy https://www.spu.edu/depts/spfc/mdft/ http://www.ecu.edu/che/cdfr/medft/ Participation is welcome.Jinkinson talk to me 19:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 25/03

Tactile Induced Analgesia. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 18:44, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Can any of us review and discuss this article or do you need to be an admin? Ian Furst (talk) 21:57, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Any competent editor can: and I'd encourage you to do so. You never really understand a topic until you try to teach it. --RexxS (talk) 22:35, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
I'd suggest that you go here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Preferences and enable the gadget with the description:
"Yet Another AFC Helper Script: easily review Articles for creation submissions, Files for Upload, redirect and category requests"
Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 23:09, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Thx. Will do tomorrow unless someone else hits it. Ian Furst (talk) 00:45, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Two questions to experience reviewers - I think it's a great article but all original research. Do I make a note to add non-primary and move on or do I need to dig up secondary sources before approving. Also, the headings are non-standard (e.g. not MEDMOS) but it's a physiology article. I haven't found any headings guidelines for physiology (although anatomy applies as well). What do you normally recommend to the authors? Ian Furst (talk) 12:53, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Original research = not published in any source. If it's supported by primary sources, then it's not OR. That happens a lot when research scientists and grad students write articles, because they think the rules for peer-reviewed journals apply (and journals usually prohibit citations of secondary sources).
Don't worry about the section headings. AFC is about first drafts, not about getting everything right. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Thx. Ian Furst (talk) 19:36, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

this is complete Ian Furst (talk) 03:14, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Dr. Gabor Racz....

I want to write a bio for Dr. Gabor Racz who is an expert in the treatment of complex regional pain syndromes (CRPS), and was hoping to get some input. I checked Google Scholar and got the following results:

  • Citations - 2474.00
  • h-index - 28.00
  • g-index 49.00
  • e-index 35.00
  • per co-authorship
  • Citations - 901.00
  • h-index 17.00
  • g-index 27.00
  • e-index 18.00

I look forward to your responses. Atsme talk 11:07, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

H-index of 28? Sounds like a notable scientist to me. Jinkinson talk to me 11:20, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Paper advertisements

At London Wikimania 2014 the organizers are offering to make paper advertisements for people who request them. WikiProject Medicine should propose something, right? I am not sure how these could be distributed but it would be nice to have a digital proof made for anyone to print themselves. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:45, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Assessing articles

Hi everyone,

I've got User:Kephir/gadgets/rater set up to handle task forces for us now. If you want to rate articles, and especially if you would like to tag already-rated (but possibly out of date?) articles for task forces, then please consider installing it.

When you install it and go to any article, you'll get a new tab called "Rater" (near the history tab). Click that and you'll see the existing tags. You can add WPMED (type "Medicine" into the box on the bottom left) if it's not there. Click the [+] by WPMED's entry to see the task forces. Click and task force's name to list it (e.g., click "Society" for people, schools, and orgs). Optionally, use the pop-up to set a priority for the task force (if it doesn't match the main rating—e.g., all people are "Low" for the main rating but may be anything for |society-imp=). Click 'Save' and you're done. It's that quick and easy.

Also, Category:Unassessed medicine articles is up over 100 articles again, if anyone has a case of editcountitis going. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Project page for conducting good article reviews on medical articles

Started the above page to try and standardize the GA review process more for medical articles, and perhaps encourage participation. Feel free to comment on, or change the page. Kind regards, Lesion (talk) 14:24, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Specialized criteria for medical GA's?

WhatamIdoing thanks for having a look. I was thinking that a biomedical type article should be assessed more closely against MEDMOS and MEDRS rather than the existing GA criteria. Also, some aspects of the general guidelines are not relevent (at least that I can see, e.g. "writing about fiction").

If this is the kind of thing people would find useful, then OK keep it, otherwise I don't see a great deal of use in another page which duplicates info available elsewhere. Thoughts? Lesion (talk) 17:31, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

GA is community-wide, so we can't make a medicine-only version.
We could try to get the community-wide criteria changed; however, I don't think that's necessary, because a good deal of what's in MEDMOS actually falls under the first GA criteria ("A good article is well-written") and third ("It addresses the main aspects of the topic"). I think a page to describe special issues or the best way to understand the existing criteria would be just fine. The important point is not to look like we are setting up "new" or "different" criteria. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
Oddly enough, GA#2b specifically mentions Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines for science-based articles, so there's a precedent for encouraging GA nominators to follow MEDMOS and MEDRS for medical articles. I wouldn't encourage reviewers to take a tough line, but GA#2b requires the article to use reliable sources, which is linked to Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. That has a section Medical claims stating "It is vital that the biomedical information in all types of articles be based on reliable, third-party, published sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge" so I guess we could justify a desire to meet MEDRS if pushed on the point.
This is an interesting idea. How exactly, at least according to Lesion, are the MEDRS and MEDMOS criteria different from the GA criteria as they currently exist? Also, is it more of a problem that medical articles listed as GAs actually shouldn't be, or the other way around? Jinkinson talk to me 23:57, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
We hold all medical articles to a very high standard of sourcing, principally because medicine tends to have a lot of very high quality sources and there's no reason not to insist on the best sources, and partially because there's a moral imperative to get it right for the reader who may decide to take what's written here as authoritative medical advice (no matter how many disclaimers we make). From that point-of-view it seems silly not to ask medical GANs to meet the same standards we ask of medical articles that are not GAs. Conventionally, GAs are not required to be perfect, so there's a reluctance to set the bar too high; personally I don't think we do any favours to GANs that fall short of MEDRS, although I'm not so worried about MEDMOS. --RexxS (talk) 00:24, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

They would not be hugely different, as pointed out by WAID and RexxS above. Most changes would be little, e.g.:

1b mention MEDMOS. Remove the link to writing about fiction,
2b making this about MEDRS specifically instead of RS

...And that's about all the changes I would suggest. Mostly it is making a general guideline more useful for people working on a particular type of article, not changing the spirit of the main criteria. There was a discussion here a few months ago about potentially making WPMED-specific criteria. Let me search the archives to link to that discussion. Lesion (talk) 00:35, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Here is that conversation: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_44#Monetary_awards. The stuff I said about turning on the article feedback is now impossible because feedback is no more. Looie496, Jmh649. Lesion (talk) 00:42, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
A good idea, but it does seem to duplicate most of what is on the GA page. I certainly think that two user groups could deal with some more detailed information about biomedical articles: (1) reviewers, detailing what is/is not a reliable source and how to deal with issues of readability, technical prose and comprehensiveness; (2) users who are not associated with this project and nominate medical articles without proper preparation, a short page outlining MEDMOS and MEDRS; or a template that can be used when quick-failing a review could be very useful. --LT910001 (talk) 02:34, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
You can't remove fiction. GA is community-wide. You cannot make a medicine-specific/all-other-subjects-excluding version and still pretend that it's the same thing as the community-wide GA. If you make a version that excludes fiction or other non-medical content, then it stops being Good articles. You would need a new name and a separate process, and you would need to remember that the existence of this new "Medical Special Good articles" would not prevent someone from applying for and receiving normal old Good article status.
You could, if you thought it was important (I don't), try to convince the community that the community-wide GA criteria need to explicitly mention MEDMOS. Unless and until that is actually mentioned, though, reviewers are actually forbidden (read footnote #2) from requiring compliance with it (or any of dozens of other Manual of Style pages).
You don't need to mention MEDRS directly, or to go through SCG (which IMO is a mess). GA requires all material to be verifiable (even if not sourced) and for five specific types of material to have inline citations supported by a reliable source. MEDRS is the community-wide definition of what constitutes a reliable source for biomedical (NB: note social, cultural, historical, biographical, financial, commercial, etc.) material. You can therefore consider it to be already included, even though not named. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:05, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Proposed removing the link to "writing about fiction" since it would not be relevant to medical articles (that I can foresee anyway). I understand what you are saying, that GA cannot be changed to make "special medical GA status", but I believe that medical articles are already assessed against specialized GA criteria, i.e. against MEDRS and MEDMOS ... especially if a WPMED regular editor carries out the review. This would be just making it slightly more "official".
Will wait for more discussion on this, I was expecting some controversy ... happy to see what the community wants and I will follow it.
P.S. I don't know what SCG is? Lesion (talk) 16:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
SCG = Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines mentioned in the Good Article Criteria. HTH, --RexxS (talk) 17:59, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough. There is also the concern that if one Wikiproject fragments their concerns, what is to stop other Wikiprojects from doing the same thing? One alternative may be to have a "GA preparation checklist" page (on this wikiproject) specific for medical articles. This would address your concerns whilst maintaining the centralised GA process. --LT910001 (talk) 05:38, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think a GA reviewer will follow it as they are unlikely to have the time/inclincation to look thru project specific guidelines. In my limited experience (n=3 attempts) I've found the GA good for structure but it does little to encourage discussions on content. Both are needed to make the articles readable imo but, personally, I enjoy the challenges & discussions from other medproject people about content. Ian Furst (talk) 10:59, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

This seems related to the discussion: WP:Advice pages. I don't know if anyone else has seen this, but it appears that we really can't tell GA reviewers to check for compliance with this Wikiproject's standards. At least that is how I interpret that page. Zell Faze (talk) 16:03, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I can understand and agree with the sentiment that any medical article claiming to be a good article should adhere to MEDRS for biomedical content. But I'll ask, it this currently a problem? Have there been medical articles that have progressed to good article nomination, that have passed good article criteria, but that have failed badly in meeting MEDRS sourcing and citation requirements? I'd hate for a lot of effort to go into solving a problem that doesn't exist in practice. --Mark viking (talk) 16:50, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
LT910001, user Blue Rasberry found that WikiProject Military history already have their own class A criteria. It would not be a precedent therefore if simple WPMED criteria for class A were concocted, as has been suggested before. Articles would pass both class A and GA, probably at the same time. This would not necessitate messing with the wording of the encyclopedia-wide GA criteria. Lesion (talk) 11:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Ian Furst, there is a short statement in which the nominator states why they have nominated this article for GA. In this section, a link to that page could be placed, then a non-WPMED reviewer would be more likely to see it. Lesion (talk) 11:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Zellfaze, yes, that is what several people have been saying. Probably can't change the GA criteria since they are standardized across the encyclopedia. Lesion (talk) 11:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Mark viking, I have only made 3 GA nominations, and even in that small number the thoroughness of the review was very variable. There are some reviewers who (rightly imo) will want to check every single source, run the text through a program which checks for plagiarism, and carefully considers the wording of every single sentence. These are definitely good articles. Other reviewers are not familiar with MEDRS and the MEDMOS and do not appear to check references against them. Here is one recent example that me and Ian nominated: [31], and I am certain that many others who have nominated GA may corroborate this variation in the standard of the review. Lesion (talk) 11:45, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Ping to Jmh649 who has much experience with GA. Lesion (talk) 11:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

So yes agree that the quality / thoroughness of reviews at GA are variable. I have nominated articles that have just passed GA review for re-review when they miss the mark by a long way. We simply need to make sure that those from this community pick up medical GANs when they appear. While I think most of us here agree that following WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS are requirements. Other reviewers may not be aware of these guidelines. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:34, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Would support an A-class listing for WP-MED. We seem to have quite a large active mass, so articles should not have to wait more than a couple of months to be reviewed. --LT910001 (talk) 03:05, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Medical FA dates

Except for a select few that had an unusual, but consistent standard, I just fixed/established a consistent dating standard in every medical FA above low importance (either MDY or DMY, depending on which was more prevalent). There were maybe about 5 out of 50 that actually had a consistent format. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 05:45, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

The switching back and forth between date formats is a pain. Can we just not go with one date format from all the ref making tools? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:51, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
The tool I used consistently applies DMY or MDY date formats using any date type, even malformed ones (e.g., it removed non-breaking spaces between a day and month, then corrected the date format). So basically, if there's consensus for establishing a consistent medical FA date format, it can be done very easily. The tool seems to be coded very well. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 08:51, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Link to script: "date formats per WP:MOSNUM by WP:MOSNUMscript"

Question for WP:MED editors

If you didnt miss this ugly blob of red text, then I want your . $200 works too.   Does anyone have any legitimate concerns with me following through on Doc James' idea with making all the MED FA's use consistent date formats? It would be DMY if so, since most of our FAs have all their dates in that format as of last night. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 15:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

You weren't around for the WP:MOSDATE war a few years ago, right? This may be a perfectly good idea, but my impulse would be to avoid it, and, if I couldn't avoid it, to make sure that all the ArbCom restrictions had lapsed before doing anything. Cas was on ArbCom then and might remember where the pages are. Also, I'd maintain a strict WP:0RR stance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:14, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Beyond a desire to cause a pointless conflict or article ownership, I have no clue why anyone would oppose this change. Since last night, I received 2 messages from 2 editors, both of whom mentioned the policy and nothing else.

Besides being obvious, that's not a reason not to do it.

Our policies make positive statements, whereas I'm asking for everyone to provide normative statements. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 16:23, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
I am happy to adopt a consistent format and agree with D/M/Y. I recall the debate - it was more about what happened afterwards. If you can show that all efforts have been made to get consensus we should be ok. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 18:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Sounds good.
Bluerasberry, I think you raised a good point, so I went and checked around 500-600 citations on the pages which had a lot of date changes (I only applied a change if there were a nontrivial number of inconsistencies). Specifically, out of the refs on Alzheimer's disease, Major depressive disorder, Management of multiple sclerosis, this invalid date was the only thing that didn't convert. It performs fairly well because it's not a citation script (i.e., it doesn't pull data); it just finds/replaces strings. I've been checking to see that it doesn't convert dates outside of references before committing the edit because of that. In any event, it seems to work with very high accuracy based upon the sample I checked. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 20:05, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Start a RfC, you will have my support. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:01, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

RFC - Standardizing the medical FA date formats

Does anyone have any legitimate concerns with me following through on Doc James' idea with making all the MED FA's use consistent date formats? Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 15:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Does "your plan would (very probably) violate WP:DATERET" count as "any legitimate concern"? Seriously, there have been wars over making all articles use The Right Style™ (so that FA #1 matches FA #2, etc.) in the past, so I think it's a good idea to tread lightly and with discussions at each affected article, exactly the way the guidelines tell you to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:24, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Just to make sure I understand your assertion, you're suggesting that I start the same thread on ~50 article talk pages, then monitor them all for responses? Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 01:46, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Project-wide consensus seems to exist for WP:STRONGNAT:
  • Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that nation. For the United States, this is month before day; for most others, it is day before month.
That means, for example that if you wanted to make the dates in Abortion in the United States consistent, I'm pretty certain you'd have to use MDY. However, if it became a Featured Article, your proposal would suggest we change all of them to DMY. I think that counts as a legitimate concern. I don't care, personally, but I know that a lot of editors will care and I think you ought to be aware of some of the obvious pitfalls. --RexxS (talk) 01:35, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I think that's a valid point RexxS. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 01:41, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Seppi, basically, yes. It would reduce drama, and this is a drama-prone area.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it's not too bad, and it's faster than spending a day over at ANI with someone who's upset about it. Write a generic message, make a list, paste the same message on each page, then go back in about a week (that's why you made the list ;-) and see if anyone objected during the intervening time. If not, post a generic message that "since nobody objected" or "since editors here seem to agree with this plan" you're moving ahead (or "since someone objected" that you're not). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:05, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Oppose standardised format. I do not see a convincing reason why editors should have to confirm to one or other date style if they so choose. This is a solution looking for a problem. I would support unifying the format used by automated tools however, as it would be very frustrating if some templates and tools gave one format, and others didn't.--LT910001 (talk) 02:11, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I think this is a reasonable alternative to my proposal and also support it. Seppi333 (Insert  | Maintained) 02:27, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes the most important first step is to get all the citation generating tools to give one format for references. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:40, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
MOS:DATEFORMAT lists several acceptable date format styles. I see no reason why medical featured articles should use a different guideline. If you want to push your guideline through, you should involve the wider community, not just WikiProject Medicine. Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:57, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Dear medical experts: This article has been waiting for quite a while at Afc for a review. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:46, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

  Resolved
Anne Delong Thanks for coming here, Anne. I checked the references, cleaned it up, and published it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:34, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikimania 2014 London health presentations

Hello. At London Wikimania the following presentations are proposed to discuss health topics.

Wikimania 2014 London presentation proposals

Comments are welcome at any of these proposals. I myself am sort-of volunteering for two panels that I proposed myself, the "perspectives in medicine" panel and the "reform of citation" panel. While I would present, more than wanting to present I wish other people would present. Especially for the medicine panel, if anyone where is attending Wikimania in London this summer, please feel encouraged to sign on as a presenter.

James is giving the "Wikipedia and Medicine" talk which would be great but while we have an audience, there really is room for several medical presentations at this conference. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:38, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Category:Medical ethics and Medical ethicists

Category:Medical ethics and Category:Medical ethicists have been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Meclee (talk) 18:05, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 28/03

On the public health side of things...but well. Draft:Inequity by disease. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 18:43, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Eating pulses & chronic disease

Editor 32cllou is adding similar material[32][33][34] to articles based on

I'm not sure this source is strong enough to support these additions - would appreciate another view. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 06:34, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes agree. This source is not pubmed indexed. There are better sources which directly contradict these claims. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:52, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
You can use this review instead (in addition)[[35]]32cllou (talk) 23:16, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Which is not about pulses. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:24, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales on adequate sources for articles on medical treatments

There is a lot of blog coverage of a change.org petition calling on Wikipedia to adjust its editorial policies to allow in more article text about "holistic approaches to healing." Jimbo Wales responded, "Wikipedia's policies around this kind of thing are exactly spot-on and correct. If you can get your work published in respectable scientific journals - that is to say, if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments, then Wikipedia will cover it appropriately." See the Respectful Insolence blog by a medical doctor, the Skeptical Software Tools blog, and other blogs for more details. I've seen on another WikiProject talk page that the Wikipedia Signpost will be reporting about this controversy. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:11, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Good to hear. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 02:39, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Hmm, a petition from the president of the "Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology". There should be a way to oppose these petitions. Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:41, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
By the way, which articles are being debated? Is "Energy medicine" one of them? Any others? Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:13, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
I understand the "inclusiveness" directive, but I would emphasize the caveat: "...if you can produce evidence through replicable scientific experiments" (emphasis mine). Like most physicians, I have no objection to holistic approaches that can demonstrate replicable evidence of efficacy. But those that can't need to be weeded out expeditiously. DoctorJoeE review transgressions/talk to me! 12:23, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Axl, according to the petition from these energy medicine people, "Energy Psychology, Energy Medicine, acupuncture, and other forms of complementary/alternative medicine (CAM)". Lesion (talk) 12:29, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Lesion. I had a look at "Energy medicine". Unsurprisingly, there are significant problems with the referencing. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:54, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Jimbo was spot on with his response. Its surprising to me how many pseudo-science types I talk to who think that we are in the pockets of big-pharma here. For the record, they definitely don't pay me to edit Wikipedia (nor any of you I assume). Fantastic read. How often do you guys run into people trying to POV push in this Wikiproject? Zell Faze (talk) 14:23, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

It appears to be the article on acupuncture. People attempting to push fringe stuff using poor quality sources is fairly common. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:58, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Heh, apparently ClueBot is secretly a pharmaceutical industry censor and purveyor of disinformation on wikipedia [36]. Lesion 01:34, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm familiar with that blog, though I never really bother reading it anymore. It's pure misinformation directed at parents desperate for someone to blame for their kids' autism and who are more easily influenced by emotion and argumentum ad populum than science. Nice to know they're on the same "Wikipedia is run by the scientific establishment" page as AGW deniers. Jinkinson talk to me 01:51, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

...and here's another Afc submission that may be of interest to this project. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:49, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Seems like we already have a page about almost exactly the same thing. Jinkinson talk to me 13:53, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for spotting that. I have declined the article. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:13, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Nursing and nursing journals

Hi, is nursing considered a subfield of medicine or is it a field that runs parallel to it? I am asking because of this CFD discussion, where it was decided to merge a couple of nursing journals into a medical journal category. Up till now, nursing journals are categorized in a categorization tree that basically runs parallel to the medical journals category and both Medical journals and Nursing journals are categorized as subcategories of Healthcare journals. Should we maintain this scheme (and ask for a -partial- reversal of the before-mentioned CFD) or should we merge both category trees (implying that, e.g., Oncology nursing journals will be merged into Oncology journals? The current situation (where all specialty nursing journals are kept separately from specialty medical journals, except for the gastrointestinal ones) is rather undesirable, I feel. I'd appreciate any input from knowledgeable editors here and am cross-posting to the Nursing and Academic Journals wikiprojects. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 11:20, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

It's a separate, parallel field. It has different educational requirements, separate licensure and a different process for entry to practice. I can understand the need to keep things simple, but I think it's more accurate to keep medical and nursing journals separate. EricEnfermero HOWDY! 12:08, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I can't say that I find "different educational requirements, separate licensure and a different process for entry to practice" convincing arguments. The same goes for general physicians, podiatrists, and cardiac surgeons... --Randykitty (talk) 12:15, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
Here's where I would disagree: The groups that you mention generally undertake an undergrad four-year education followed by doctoral study and additional postgraduate residency training; two of the three are licensed by the same boards; and almost all members of those three groups undergo hospital credentialing processes. Nurses go through almost none of that and have a completely different role in health delivery most of the time. I appreciate you seeking comments though; nurses seem to be pretty underrepresented on Wikipedia and I think it means something just to be heard. I think we can agree that - whatever is decided - it's not ideal to have one specialty (gastrointestinal journals) handled differently than the rest. EricEnfermero HOWDY! 12:41, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Nursing is considered a healthcare field. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Nursing is a healthcare field, but is separate from medicine, at least academically. For instance at UCSF, a medical school, the School of Nursing is separate and parallel with the School of Medicine. While we are at it, pharmacy should be considered separate from the others, as well as the allied health professions. See, for instance, Health care provider#Practitioners and professionals. Putting dentistry journals under the medical journals is probably wrong, too. --Mark viking (talk) 13:40, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

  • I wouldn't propose to reverse the CfD completely, just the decision to merge to the medical journals cat. But I like your proposal of categorizing the nursing specialty journal cats under the medical specialty journal cats, and for smaller cats just include them in the medical journal cat as now happened with the gastrointestinal nursing journals. --Randykitty (talk) 16:48, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Based on this discussion I agree that Nursing journals should be kept in a separate category - although I have no problem if it is a separate category within the category of medicine. Otherwise, I think it is burdening one category too much when combining medicine and nursing journals. --- Steve Quinn (talk) 06:38, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Sending a mass message

The first quarter of 2014 has come and gone, and it's time for WP:ANATOMY's quarterly newsletter to be sent out. Would any administrators here be so kind as to help me send a mass message? A mailing list and template to be mailed exist (although I'd like to mail a transclusion rather than the full text if possible). --LT910001 (talk) 23:51, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I believe that everything is supposed to be subst'd on talk pages. You don't need an admin; you can request the WT:Mass message senders right for yourself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, have done. --LT910001 (talk) 19:28, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Products under development

I've started an AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prostate Rectum Spacers with the comment"I'm not sure how we should cover such projects in development, and I've posted at the Medicine Wikiproject. . My own tentative view is that we should cover them only if there is visible interest from more general interest publications". Opinions welcome. DGG ( talk ) 18:22, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the point to remember is that WP:PROMOTION covers medical devices, procedures and compounds just like it covers mundane ones. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:17, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Neuropathies

I've been looking at Benjamin Oluwakayode Osuntokun, konzo, tropical ataxic neuropathy, ataxic polyneuropathy, and cassava. It seems the area is in need of some attention. Could someone with some relevant expertise please have a peek? LeadSongDog come howl! 21:39, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I've been working on the neuropathies, so I'll take a look later today. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:53, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. Ch 10 of this pp. 246-9 looks useful. LeadSongDog come howl! 06:45, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Still reading. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:05, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Wolfgang Michel-Zaitsu

Dear medical experts: I can't tell if this is a notable professor or not. Should the old Afc submission be saved and improved? —Anne Delong (talk) 11:21, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Google scholar does not show any highly-cited papers, so probably not. Unless of course, there's coverage of him in another language (i.e. German or Japanese), which I'm not seeing, not reading those languages. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:24, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
I have been reading a lot of articles about professors, and I was surprised to find that many very well known professors don't even have a Google Scholar profile. Apparently this is common among some professors who were tenured before its use became common, and those who decide to list their work in other places. I also found that the citation level varies a lot from one subject area to another, depending on if it's customary to write journal papers, publish whole books, go on lecture/conference tours, etc. His title of "Professor Emeritas" tells me that he is likely mostly retired. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to look at this. Maybe I'll ask at Wikiproject Germany, and if I don't get a positive answer there, I'll let the draft go to G13 oblivion. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:50, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Google scholar is not the only possible test. A widely held book (I use 1000 libraries on worldcat, but that's worse that google scholar for English-centricism) will also work, as will any of the normal biography tests. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:53, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
This is history of medicine not medicine, and MEDRES standards do not apply. Google Scholar is particularly useless for people in the humanities, and using the number of books in a library needs to be considered by subject--essentially no scholarly books reach 1000.) But the only way of judging notability we have is to hold a discussion at AfD The general practice at AfC is to accept any article likely to pass afd -- some people define likely at 50%; I use 60%, and if I've done any work on it, aim much higher. Considering the very extensive German article, and the very high notability standards of the German WP, and their much greater competence than the enWP in dealing with the academic humanities, including those studying East Asia. I've accepted the article. We can deal with further improvements (or challenges) later, as with all articles. DGG ( talk ) 20:01, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, DGG. —Anne Delong (talk) 01:12, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

German acupuncture trials

  • He, W.; Tong, Y.; Zhao, Y.; Zhang, L.; et al. (2013). "Review of controlled clinical trials on acupuncture versus sham acupuncture in Germany". Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine. 33 (3): 403–7. doi:10.1016/s0254-6272(13)60187-9. PMID 24024341.

The originally discussion was at Talk:German acupuncture trials/Archive 1#Insurance companies in Germany have stopped reimbursement for acupuncture treatment. Editors agreed the source was reliable. There was WP:CON to use it for the German acupuncture trials article. But now editors claim the 2013 review is unreliable. The current discussion is at Talk:German acupuncture trials#Proposal. I think the source is reliable for the claim. QuackGuru (talk) 18:48, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

It looks like the archives to the GAT page are formatted wrong. Shouldn't the titles have /Archive # at the end instead of the number by itself? Jinkinson talk to me 23:50, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Article is pubmed indexed. Would strongly recommend a RfC content to bring more opinions to the matter. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:14, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
Here's another source that may be useful to those who, unlike me, know a lot about this topic. [37] Jinkinson talk to me 02:20, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Now even more text is being deleted from the article for non-medical claims. QuackGuru (talk) 20:54, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Do we not have any other sources that regurgitate the same info...if its not fringe as indicated by a reversal then there should be many other publications taking about this right - its old now 2006? Journal of traditional Chinese medicine will be subject to reliability concerns here by many. Is there other sources saying/implying "Germany may not be standardized and may not be suitable for acupuncture clinical trial research." As this is what is being implied by mentioning failures in the process in the article. -- Moxy (talk) 22:22, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
no we don't have other sources, especially for the claim that because of GERAC, some insurers stopped covering acupuncture. QG really wants that statement in the article. But there is no other source for it.. which in any non-tendentious mind, would make one think it is not true, coming from a source that fails WP:FRIND. Jytdog (talk) 23:17, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
The part for coverage was not offered for headache or migraine I found another source. The part for some insurers stopped covering acupuncture I can't find another source yet. QuackGuru (talk) 02:13, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
gang there is serious forum-shopping going on here. This source and a similar one were carefully discussed at Talk:Gerac and one of them on Talk:MEDRS, an length and calmly, as part of a review of sources by jps. Alexbrn, Second Quantization participated too. Careful, measured discussion during which five editors participated from across the board on this issue. QG did not participate. We decided to exclude these two sources for everything. After the dust settled, GQ re-introduced them both to the article. When I objected, he edit-warred and then put notices at the FRINGE board and here. This is the epitome of IDHT FORUMSHOPPING. Ugly stuff. Jytdog (talk) 23:10, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
We decided to exclude these two sources for everything? Nope. Not all editors wanted to delete the journal.[38][39][40] Another editor restored the part about this. If you read the talk page and look at the edit history some editors wanted to use the journal. The recent edit was misleading because the claims are not fringe claims. QuackGuru (talk) 02:02, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
more IDHT. Something said once and not verified anywhere else, appearing in journal that fails WP:FRIND, is not coming into Wikipedia. I cannot believe that a quack-fighter like you is taking such a stance, so strongly, that quacks everywhere can use against the encyclopedia. your argument is way, way out of bounds. Jytdog (talk) 05:10, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
So this is a medical or insurance claim were the source is disputed right? To put this simply if other reliable published sources do not include the information that you have found at only one place, then that information is—by definition—not important enough to include or is a fringe claim. -- Moxy (talk) 05:16, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
I've seen it discussed in both Journal of Chinese Medicine and Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, but it's obvious what the problem is - only the journals specifically related to acupuncture would be concerned about whether German health insurance companies paid out for acupuncture or not. It would not have even dented the consciousness of mainstream journals - why would it? So my advice to QG is to leave it be: there won't be anything that we'd want to use as sources, and without best-quality sources, it's not worth expending energy on. There is still lots for you to do without having to get into arguments. There is so much that could be improved in the Acupuncture article (like "A 2012 review said this... A 2013 review said that... that needs to be asserted as simple fact). --RexxS (talk) 22:42, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
I improved on my previous edits for both German acupuncture trials and acupuncture. As for acupuncture and asserting the facts, different sources say different things. I wrote the text the same way I did for Chiropractic#Effectiveness. QuackGuru (talk) 04:45, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Effects of pornography‎ article

The Effects of pornography (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) article could use significant help from this WikiProject, and so can the Effects section of the Pornography article, which I mentioned in the edit summary before this latest edit there. I might have mentioned the Effects of pornography‎ article at this WikiProject before (will need to check the archives to be certain), but I've had it on my WP:Watchlist since 2012 (temporarily took it off my WP:Watchlist) and I've mainly seen POV editing there about pornography's effect on health and crime, with few improvements going on there. I'm not sure how active the research is on the effects of pornography‎ with regard to health or crime, but, judging by the sources used in that article, one could conclude that the research is not very active on the topic or at least that there are not many reviews coming out on it. So, per Wikipedia:MEDRS#Use up-to-date evidence, this may be an area where WP:Primary sources are the rule instead of the exception or are at least not as discouraged as they usually are with regard to health topics. Tgeorgescu and Drbogdan are the latest editors of that article and Drbogdan added some more references to the lead (though, per WP:CITELEAD, references don't necessarily need to be in the lead). I'm not sure why the "Some studies support the contention that the viewing of pornographic material may increase rates of sexual crimes" part of a sentence was left uncited, since that is supported lower in the article. Anyway, if any WP:MED editors can help with that article, it would of course be a benefit to readers and Wikipedia. Flyer22 (talk) 18:09, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

The references listed at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200274559 include links to related information, some of which may provide sources acceptable for this WikiProject.
Wavelength (talk) 18:50, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm really not convinced that the Watchtower Online Library counts as a reliable source about medical issues under Wikipedia's policies. -- The Anome (talk) 19:09, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
I understand that, but it can be a lead (sense 17) to sources which possibly do count as reliable sources.
Wavelength (talk) 19:24, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, but what are these reliable sources supposed to be? Google is, in your sense, a lead to reliable sources but we don't cite "Google" as a source, we cite the source itself. -- The Anome (talk) 19:30, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree that we cite the source itself. That is what I intended in my first reply. Someone who understands WP:MEDRS may wish to look for those sources in the information.
Wavelength (talk) 19:40, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
The Watchtower has an ax to grind against pornography, e.g. they are not even aware that the Bible contains pornography so they do not ask themselves how could a book containing porn be against porn. The idea that is as addictive as crack cocaine is WP:FRINGE/PS. I did not see any reliable sources mentioned at [41]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:28, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Wavelength, you're very welcome to search for and add cited information that's based on peer-reviewed research (for non-medical effects), and WP:MEDRS (for medical effects). Everything else must be viewed as just an opinion, to be added either to the Pornography article itself, or something like Religious views on pornography, in a way that accords with the WP:NPOV and notability policies. -- The Anome (talk) 21:25, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not limit sources to "peer-reviewed research". Non-peer-reviewed and non-research sources are also acceptable. We need "reliable" sources. There's a simplified checklist for what constitutes "reliable" at WP:NOTGOODSOURCE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:54, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

FWIW - several possible starting places to search for relevant WP:MEDRS *may* be at the following: USA Porn Report, US/DK/GE/SW Porn Report, DK Porn Studies (numerous refs), Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship and President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography - hope the above helps in some way - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 21:44, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

There are 175 web pages listed at http://www.dmoz.org/search?q=pornography.
Wavelength (talk) 02:19, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, and a Google search will find even more, but now you have to do the legwork to determine which are reliable sources and which not, and furthermore, which meet the WP:RS, WP:V and WP:N criteria, and, in the case of anything making a medical claim, WP:MEDRS as well. Can I suggest this Google Scholar search instead, as a starting point for your research? -- The Anome (talk) 12:21, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Lipedema

Dear medicine experts, could you please take a look at this article? Since it was created in 2005, it has had only two references (one of which is dead), but it makes a number of questionable statements, such as an 11% incidence, a claim that "in recent years growing awareness of lipedema has come from internet sources", and various other completely unsupported statements about specific details. There is a recent comment in the talk page asserting that the article is a subtle promotion of cosmetic surgery, which may make sense, as it states that "lipedemic fat generally cannot be lost through diet and exercise". It doesn't help that the article is extremely vague as to the causes of the condition; it first states that lipedema can be inherited while stating that the cause is unknown in a different section, but it seems to me that accumulating fatty tissue is different from the swelling of fatty tissue, which is what edema implies (this article calls lipedema a "rare disease" characterised by hyperplasia of individual fat cells). Of course, I'm in no way an expert, and I may just be mistaken, so any comment would be appreciated. Thanks! -Anagogist (talk) 16:43, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

There are fewer than 100 papers at PubMed on this subject. PMID 17540658 (on associated hair loss) claims to be (the only) free, full-text review. Perhaps that would be a good place to start? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Music therapy

Seems there's some promotional shit buried here and there on this page--or at least the single sentence about autism. Would like it if you (other) regular contributors could take a look. And don't get me started on the use of Huffington Post as a source--eesh. Jinkinson talk to me 04:36, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

There is definately a source problem in this article. It's using primary sources to claim effects on Schizophrenia and Depression. Also non-compliant with WP:MEDMOS CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 09:26, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Medical questions at the Reference Desks

Some people here will want to have a look at Wikipedia:VPP#Claim_that_talk_page_guidelines_override_reference_desk_ones. The question is whether, in the event that a person posts a request for medical advice at the Reference Desks, it's okay to remove the question, or whether talk page guidelines prohibit you from doing so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:39, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

The reference desk/medical advice issue has been going on for years. The reference desk editors are a law unto themselves. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:29, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Gabapentin: significant removal of info

I'm not sure if this is legitimate trimming or not but I think it could use a second look as it's pretty extensive:

Cheers, Jake Ocaasi t | c 01:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

The "Withdrawal" and "Legal action" subsections have been completely deleted. The "Withdrawal" subsection was based mainly on primary sources. Formerly 98 deleted the text with that reason. He indicates that he searched for secondary sources but could not find them. I find it surprising that there are no secondary sources to support this information.
The "Legal action" section looked quite reasonable. Formerly 98 deleted the text with the claim that the references were primary sources. However this source looks okay. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 30/03

Is there anything salvageable here? Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Delta Ratio. Thanks, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 01:01, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

It is a concept that is relevant in metabolic acidosis and anion gap and is probably notable. The editor should be encouraged to use secondary sources and expand those articles in the first instance. The page delta ratio can then be turned into a redirect. JFW | T@lk 12:34, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

AfC submission - 01/04

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Sugiura Procedure. Not an April Fools' joke! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Zonal NePhRO scoring system

Is this topic notable or is this just another case of self-promotion (the original creator used a username that matched one of the authors in one of the references)? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:09, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I have nominated the article for deletion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zonal NePhRO scoring system. Many thanks for posting this notification. Lesion 17:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Max Wintermark

Dear medical experts: Is this old Afc submission about a notable professor? —Anne Delong (talk) 17:52, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

GS h-index of 47 says yes. [42] Jinkinson talk to me 18:03, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Question for Jinkinson: What does "h-index of 47" mean? I'm curious. Thanks. Softlavender (talk) 18:44, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
The term h-index refers to a number # such that the scientist has published at least # papers each of which has been cited at least # times. For more info see Wikipedia's page on the topic. Jinkinson talk to me 18:46, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Ah, OK thanks v much. And how did you determine or find his h-index for that GS search, if you don't mind explaining? I couldn't determine that from the Wiki article or footnote. Softlavender (talk) 18:58, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
I have this installed. Jinkinson talk to me 19:15, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
OK thanks very much, Jinkinson! :) Softlavender (talk) 19:35, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, I added some citations, since it's a biography. I'm sure someone with medical expertise could have done better, but is it suitable as a stub in mainspace now? —Anne Delong (talk) 19:44, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

O-Acetylpsilocin

O-Acetylpsilocin (4-AcO-DMT) is a research chemical purported to be a prodrug of psilocin, which the article makes clear. My concern is that, as an RC, secondary sources are notably lacking on the subject, and I'm wondering if we're overstepping MEDRS by reporting the theoretical mechanism of action when no actual studies has taken place. It's within the realm of possibility that 4-AcO-DMT is active itself but this too has not been confirmed. Ugh, I also just noticed that bluelight.ru forums (an illicit drug form) is being used as a source, so it's probably worse than I thought. Has the topic of research chemicals and how to treat them in WP undergone any protracted discussion here? Noformation Talk 00:54, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

This discussion has not occurred as far as I am aware. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 17:03, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Dear medical experts: Here's an Afc submission that may be of interest to this project. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:57, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I haven't looked at it, but that sounds much too narrow a subject to justify an entire article. It should probably be no more than a single (short) paragraph under Management of heart failure or some similar subject.
Along those lines, does anyone know why Heart disease#Management contain only a single sentence?! WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:51, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes same problem. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 17:10, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Citation of Wikiversity articles as sources in medical articles.

See here: [43]. It appears that having instituted some sort of 'peer review' process, it is now being claimed that Wikiversity meets WP:RS and/or WP:MEDRS. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:29, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, it should probably be noted that all articles so far cited from Wikiversity have been written by the same author: User:Mikael Häggström. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:53, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the archives for this talk page, I found this thread [44] which discussed the proposed Wikiversity 'peer review' process - though I can see nothing whatsoever in it to indicate that there was any consensus to accept such material as WP:MEDRS-compliant. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:59, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

As given in Wikipedia:Wikiversity#Using_a_Wikiversity_page_as_reference_in_Wikipedia, it has been established that "Wikiversity content is generally not identified as a reliable source in Wikipedia. Therefore, usage of Wikiversity as a reference in Wikipedia is generally not advisable.". Yet, I still think such usage is possible, as can be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mikael Häggström (talk) 20:09, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps you could then explain why the 'Wikiversity:Peer review' page [45] which was written almost entirely by you expressly claims that "A major reason of having a work peer reviewed in Wikiversity is the possibility to summarize it in Wikipedia, or having additional quality assurance of existing Wikipedia entries, citing the Wikiversity page as the source". It is up to Wikipedia, not Wikiversity, to decide whether sources meet our standards - and it seems entirely irresponsible to suggest otherwise. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:27, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Andy, the page you cited (a category page on Wikiversity) does not appear to make any claim that Wikiversity meets RS/MEDRS. Lesion 21:10, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Not directly, no. But the implication is there on [46] - and the person responsible for writing it has chosen to cite his own Wikiversity articles on Wikipedia. WP:COI seems relevant here... AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:18, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Where are they cited on Wikipedia? Also I personally would not say that the second cited page (Peer review) expressly states that Wikiversity meets RS/MEDRS. It says a possibility, which to my reading implies that this could be the case in the future, or indeed a case by case basis (as pretty much any other source on Wikipedia)... as stated above. Might be an idea to tweak this wording for more clarity. Lesion 21:24, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
If you look at the articles in the Wikiversity category, they each contain a template saying "This article is used as a reference in Wikipedia in the following articles:" AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:48, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
OK I see now. E.g. Allogeneic component to overcome rejection in interspecific pregnancy is used on Interspecific pregnancy and Immunosurgery. Perhaps we should try to reach a consensus about this, ping to posters on original thread TenOfAllTrades, Bluerasberry, WhatamIdoing. To continue the discussion, I would suggest on the positive side of these sources, that they appear to be secondary sources, with in-line citation to reputable sounding sources. On the negative side, assume this journal is not MEDLINE indexed. Lesion 22:16, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
It is not MEDLINE indexed, but I'm working on having such issues fixed. The Wikiversity Journal of Medicine just got ISSN registered last week, and I'm currently working on assigning doi codes for each article, so there is still a lot of work to do.Mikael Häggström (talk) 04:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I support this project as a pilot. I would not suggest dismissing all papers in a given journal even if that journal is from a Wikimedia project, because most journals publish dubious papers which ought not be cited even if on their face they seem to have gone through process. If someone questions a source then I think the best response would be to just treat it like any other source which someone claims is dubious. There are no great plans to scale up the Wikimedia publication of academic sources, and for that reason, I see no reason for a special response to this even though comments on the proposal are welcome as for any Wikimedia proposal. I like having an original publishing proposal in place as a concept of how this can be done. For a more developed similar proposal, check out Scholarpedia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:06, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm grateful that this project is given a chance. I have great hopes that the increased transparency in the peer review process will result in more reliability than many other journals out there. Mikael Häggström (talk) 04:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
The key discussion is taking place at WP:RSN as that is where this issue can be decided. Not here. Dougweller (talk) 09:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for that Dougweller. Here is the link, Wikipedia:RSN#Citation_of_Wikiversity_articles_as_sources_in_articles.. Lesion 12:19, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
And thanks for the link Lesion but it needed a full stop/period at the end - which is unusual for a section heading. Dougweller (talk) 12:41, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes I could see this as eventually being a suitable source of possible references but would need to see the bar of pubmed indexing reached first. Also it is too young to have a reputation for reliability. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 17:21, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Medical translation Individual Engagement Grant

I'd like to ask you all to take a look at a Wikimedia IEG grant a few of us here at Wikiproject MED are behind. You may already have heard of the translation of medical articles that is being done (if not please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Translation Task Force). The goal of the grant I've applied for is to get some traction so as to have the translation and integration process going smoothly. We've come far at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Translation task force/RTT, but to get further there is need of some form of organization, preferably by someone who can devote significant time to the task.

I'm very hopefull that I can provide real benefit with this grant, as there are so many articles on Wikipedia that could help people all over the world.
It's even more important when you take into account drives such as Wikipedia Zero, which gives readers who might not have access to anything else access to Wikipedia.

Please take a look at the grant page: Medicine Translation Project Community Organizing, and add a comment or give your ideas on how we can best benefit other Wikipedia communities.
Thanks, -- CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 21:15, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

New editor on water fluoridation

A new editor has been active on Water fluoridation, water fluoridation controversy and fluoridation by country; would appreciate more eyes and comments on the talk page. Thanks. Yobol (talk) 21:28, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I saw this, and decided to let this WikiProject know that a class will be working on the Vaginismus, Cervical cancer and a few other vaginal-related articles; more information is here: Education Program:Harvard University/Obgyn bootcamp (April 2014). Flyer22 (talk) 05:15, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Looks promising. Considering the name of the course I'd think those taking it were medical students, or maybe even interns, probably with a rather good understanding of the materials. If we're proactive and get into contact with the instructor to make sure WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS are followed this could be really good. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 08:18, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
I sent a short mail. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 08:38, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Found this Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard/Archive7#OBGYN_bootcamp_project, which I had missed. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 08:43, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

CFCF and Flyer22 I will be presenting to this class in person next week. Some of the students have already registered for the class and I think we all would appreciate any comments anyone has once they have developed their articles. They seem enthusiastic. Thanks for noticing. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

New user edits at Depression (mood)

A new user Naimanadeem has made several edits to this article today, using a few primary sources to reference his/her edits. I am at a loss whether these are considered acceptable under WP:MEDRS, but lean towards suggesting they be replaced by better secondary sources.
The reason why I am hesitant is because we make the distinction between Major depressive disorder and Depression (mood), something which not all sources do in the same way, and some of the primary sources target depression in general and not specifically major depressive disorder.
Thoughts?
-- CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 08:11, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it is a bit of a headache that some medical articles use "depression" as an abbreviation for "major depression" and thus "major depressive disorder". Many of the edits look reasonable and the statements look like they should be able to be supported by secondary sources, although there's one or two that mightn't be. Best would be to look for review articles and see what can be replaced. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 18:53, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Help needed at Talk:Seahorse#Medicine?

This is a discussion about whether to use the term medicine for the use of seahorses in Chinese traditional culture. Advice would be very welcome to the participants (I haven't commented yet). Dougweller (talk) 19:14, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Meningioangiomatosis

Dear medical experts: Is this a notable topic, and should the old Afc submission be kept and improved instead of being deleted as a stale draft? —Anne Delong (talk) 14:05, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I did some citation cleanup, wikilinks, etc but it still needs inlining of citations. For a short stub with only a few refs, that should not really be a showstopper. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:58, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
While doing the above, I noted that there's no target article for sporadic disease as distinct from familial diseaseand hereditary disease, both of which redirect to genetic disorder. Any thoughts on whether they need distinct articles, or is another redirect to the one catch-all sufficient? LeadSongDog come howl! 19:43, 3 April 2014 (UTC)