Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:19, 18 December 2007

Medicine articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	Other	???	Total
FA	7	14	20	23				64
FL		2	4	9				15
FM					80			80
GA	31	47	114	190			2	384
B	57	435	1,346	1,763		5	36	3,642
C	6	424	3,208	7,789	3	8	186	11,624
Start		131	4,545	17,877	2	12	438	23,005
Stub			1,606	9,945		3	510	12,064
List		23	271	586			17	897
Category					11,244			11,244
Disambig					173			173
File					478			478
Portal					540			540
Project					168			168
Redirect			459	844	5,954			7,257
Template					1,699			1,699
NA					10			10
Other					131			131
Draft					176			176
Assessed	101	1,076	11,573	39,026	20,658	28	1,189	73,651
Unassessed				6		17	86	109
Total	101	1,076	11,573	39,032	20,658	45	1,275	73,760
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 245,605			Ω = 4.84

Discussion of the WikiProject Medicine
Older discussions are archived: Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3:, Archive 4, Archive 5, Archive 6, Archive 7...

Nominated for deletion via WP:PROD

• Brain dish 11 August

Adding a sig here so the bot can date and remove this section. --Una Smith 14:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

FAR

Asperger syndrome has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

For the record, Asperger syndrome passed its third FA review in September 2007. --Una Smith 15:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Frontal Bone

Why does the Borders section of the article on the Frontal Bone talk about the squama temporalis? It just doesn't seem right.

I have copied this query to Talk:Frontal bone. --Una Smith 14:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Gastroenteritis articles cluster

Re the request for help with Rotavirus (see above), I notice there is a large cluster of closely related pages with overlapping content:

• Rotavirus (and possibly others)
• Gastroenteritis (merge Gastritis, Enteritis, and Bacterial gastroenteritis?)
• Diarrhea
• Oral rehydration therapy

Norovirus is notable for not having much content overlapping with other pages. --Una Smith 00:37, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I think gastritis and enteritis have individual merits, because there are many causes of each that are unrelated to the clinical syndrome of gastroenteritis (e.g. regional enteritis, atrophic gastritis). Bacterial gastroenteritis can probably be merged in the GEitis article without loss of information.

The ORS page has individual merits.

Diarrhea has at least 100 causes, from cholera to hyperthyroidism and back again to carcinoid and laxative abuse. It can stand on its own merits.

I totally agree that infectious gastroenteritis-related content should all be moved to one article. I'll see if I can lend a hand. JFW | T@lk 22:52, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't propose a wholesale merge of all these pages, but most would benefit from moving around some of their content. If Gastritis and Enteritis are not merged with Gastroenteritis, then the distinctions between them need to be made clearer. --Una Smith 00:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

There is more discussion of this on Talk:Gastroenteritis. --Una Smith 00:27, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree that we need to make this clearer. JFW | T@lk 09:48, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I have added still more articles in this cluster for cleanup. See Talk:Gastroenteritis. ----Una Smith 14:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Rotavirus is improving steadily, but would benefit from some fresh eyes, particularly lay readers' eyes. Please take a look, comment on Talk:Rotavirus, or jump right in and edit Rotavirus. --Una Smith (talk) 03:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of interest and Wiki sister projects

I hope everyone will please read through this entire discussion as it relates to the use of Wiki sister projects to further a conflict of interest. I suggest we need to be much more vigilant about links to Wiki sister projects; perhaps it was only me, but it has never occurred to me before that they needed to be checked according to the same criterion we'd use for any other external link. It's also worth noting that Slp1 was all alone on this issue until I happened to bring this article to FAR, at which point the issues came to the light of day before a broader audience. (And will someone please review Ambulance at FAC?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge of Medical speciality, Medical specialist, Physician specialty codes and Surgical specialties

The following discussion is from Template talk:Medicine:

Why not merge the Physician specialties and Medical specialties? They include the same list - just that Physician specialties links to their codes. Mikael Häggström (talk) 13:08, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

If you are going to be merging these articles, I recommend merging all of the articles listed on the left side of the template. There is a lot of duplicated content between Physician specialties, Medical specialty, Surgical specialties, and Medical specialist. I recommend creating one big table of the specialties, with each row containing the specialty, surgical or medical, specialty code, annual salary, parent specialty (if sub-specialty), and a brief description of the field. You might want to place {{mergeto}} and {{mergefrom}} tags on the pages and move this discussion to one of these 4 articles' talk pages. --Scott Alter 15:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thus, Medical speciality, Medical specialist, Physician specialty codes and Surgical specialties probably need to be merged. However, I think Surgical specialties may remain as a subarticle to that entity. Physician specialty codes may also be, because it has it in alphabetical order - something which probably will be lost, because I think several tables are needed, to avail headers to distinguish major groups, as in Table of muscles. Mikael Häggström (talk) 17:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Multiple tables can be avoided by using sortable tables (see List of medical schools in the United States for an example). The default sorting would be on the specialty name, and the specialty codes could be alphabetized by clicking in the column heading. The reason I would want a column solely for "medical" or "surgical" would be so that the specialties could be displayed in order, first sorted by medical or surgical, and secondarily by specialty name (similar to the degree column in List of medical schools in the United States). If your only reason to separate medical and surgical is for ease of browsing, a sortable table should take care of your concern. --Scott Alter 18:21, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Is the content of Physician specialty codes even encyclopedic? I have my doubts... JFW | T@lk 22:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a sortable table would do it well. Then we don't need that Physician specialty codes as a separate article, but just use the codes in this new table. I'll try this method. Anybody may fine-tune it later. Mikael Häggström (talk) 05:52, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. Again, feel free to fine-tune it. Mikael Häggström (talk) 13:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Health effects of tobacco smoking article

This article is an absolute disgrace. It includes as "health effects" really only "health benefits" of tobacco smoking. As a doctor I am particularly apalled that this is the case. This article either needs urgent review or to be merged into another article which is less biased. I've started adding in some brief information about health RISKS, though I'm having problems with working out how to cite articles to put citations in there at the moment. I think I do need some help fixing that article up... help! Snipergirl (talk) 14:26, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Use this link for PubMed numbers. --GrahamColm 14:54, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Well done Snipergirl. Don't hesitate to tag the page {{POV}} if you can't fix it on your own. I have renamed the page tobacco and health, which is a more inclusive title that would allow the page to cover more controversial issues such as the health risks of Snus. Be aware that passive smoking contains much relevant material, and that you may want to summarise its conclusions in a separate paragraph with the {{main}} at the top to avoid duplication.

We will obviously help out as much as possible, but I believe MastCell (talk · contribs) has recently spent a lot of time trying to knock passive smoking into shape. JFW | T@lk 15:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks dudes! Will start doing too :) Snipergirl (talk) 16:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

The Ischaemic Heart Disease Article

It looks like the original writers of this article did quite a valiant effort while they could. I have completely rewritten the article with some structural changes with some help from the coronary heart disease article. It does also need some more padding out but it's a start. Snipergirl (talk) 16:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the articles should be merged. The vast majority of IHD is due to CHD/CAD, and we already have a great duplicity of articles on the subject. Acute coronary syndrome and myocardial infarction stand on their own (but the former needs more sources). JFW | T@lk 20:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Drug article debate

It seems there is a current debate (in the archived version of this talk page) about which articles should be joined. Some of the articles in question are not solely related to drug abuse and many of them do not fall within the topic of drug abuse at all.

In particular, drug dependence, drug tolerance etc are biological processes that have litle to do with drug abuse. Patients routinely become physiologically dependent on and tolerant to drug effects without abusing them. This is especially relevant in cases where the drug in question has no psychological addiction potential whatsoever, and there are many cases where this is true. One would never refer to a patient who has become tolerant to antibiotics as a drug abuser, or an addict, nor is that patient dependent on the drug, IE if one discontinues the antibiotic course there is not likely to be a set of withdrawal symptoms. One would also not refer to a patient who is dependent on anti-depressants as an addict even if discontinuation of the drug would cause withdrawal symptoms.

In addition, one can become tolerant to drugs like morphine or valium without abusing them, cancer patients routinely become tolerant and physiologically dependent on opiates despite the fact that they are using them for legitimate purposes, but one would never refer to a cancer patient as a drug addict simply because of tolerance or physical dependence on the medication. These specific conditions are entirely separate and lumping them together is incorrect.

To clarify my position, it would be highly improper to pull all these topics under the drug abuse subject simply because they are related in some way, and they have more to differentiate them than they have in common. Mrsteveman1 (talk) 22:51, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about a category or a template or something else? Sorry, not quite following. I wasn't around for the beginning of the convo, so please fill me in if it's not too much hassle. Thanks, Antelan 22:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with Mrsteveman1. The concepts of tolerance, dependence, withdrawal and abuse are distinct (though related)and IMHO wikipedia should reflect this. Sanjpatel1 (talk) 15:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

My thinking is (i hoped the examples would clarify this), that all these things, dependence, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, may be related to drug abuse in that abusing drugs can lead to those problems, but they are and always will be medical problems completely distinct from the intent of the user. People abuse drugs all the time without ever seeing any of these problems, and people see these problems without having ever abused drugs. Therefor they are for the most part, separate issues with much greater relevance to other situations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrsteveman1 (talk • contribs) 21:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Phillip

Hi,my name is Shirley Free,and my son Phillip Thompson has cystinosis.He was diagnosed with Fanconi Syndrome a littel over a year old.This may he turned 6 years old,and in june an eye Dr. found out it was cystinosis.I was terrified.He is currently on the Cystagon (for 4 months now)and goes to Arkansas Children'Hospital tomorrow to see if the treatment is working.I also have an 18 month old daughter,Tori, who will be tested tomorrow to see if she has cystinosis.I guess I just wanted to tell someone so they know they are not alone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.95.123.144 (talk) 19:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Shirley, I'm sorry to hear about Phillip and hope everything will be well. Please note that you've left the above message on a Misplaced Pages page where contributors work together on medical articles. It is unlikely to directly reach anyone who is going through the same situation as you. Have you been in touch with the Cystinosis Foundation? JFW | T@lk 22:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Shingles

Herpes zoster is on WP:FAC. Please comment at Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Herpes zoster and help Orangemarlin (talk · contribs) in getting this featured. JFW | T@lk 22:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Greenspun illustration project: requests now open

Dear Wikimedians,

This is a (belated) announcement that requests are now being taken for illustrations to be created for the Philip Greenspun illustration project (PGIP).

The aim of the project is to create and improve illustrations on Wikimedia projects. You can help by identifying which important articles or concepts are missing illustrations (diagrams) that could make them a lot easier to understand. Requests should be made on this page: Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project/Requests

If there's a topic area you know a lot about or are involved with as a Wikiproject, why not conduct a review to see which illustrations are missing and needed for that topic? Existing content can be checked by using Mayflower to search Wikimedia Commons, or use the Free Image Search Tool to quickly check for images of a given topic in other-language projects.

The community suggestions will be used to shape the final list, which will be finalised to 50 specific requests for Round 1, due to start in January. People will be able to make suggestions for the duration of the project, not just in the lead-up to Round 1.

• General information about the project: m:Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project
• Potential illustrators and others interested in the project should join the mailing list: mail:greenspun-illustrations

thanks, pfctdayelise (talk) 13:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC) (Project coordinator)

Scabies treatment

The treatment section of the Scabies pages has been flagged for its potential bias and 'how-to,' but I'm not entirely clear why (I have a guess, 'tho, and have been working to improve it.) Any suggestions?Rick lightburn (talk) 17:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Neoplasia and Tumor

User:Emmanuelm shortened Neoplasia and Tumor on the grounds that the Cancer article is much more exciting, so people should really just go to that article instead. I've reverted the edits to Neoplasia, primarily because I was (and am) irritated by the consensus-free style on display, but also because it seems really undesirable to "soft-redirect" a woman with benign uterine fibroids (to name one common non-cancerous neoplasm) to the cancer article. I don't normally keep track of Tumor and don't want to intrude if its usual shepherds agree with the changes. Would someone else (or several someone elses) please take a look at both of these articles and make rational decisions about them? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:53, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. Tumor is a mess and User:Emmanuelm did clean up some problems, but also created some new problems. Rather than just fix the new problems, a patch, I suppose the page may as well get worked over. But first, this may be a good time to discuss the accumulating content overlaps between Cancer and many related pages, not just Neoplasia and Tumor. --Una Smith (talk) 03:55, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello WhatamIdoing & Una Smith, I understand your concern. In fact, in Dec 2005, I was the one arguing your point in the talk page of Cancer. Jellytussle and others convinced me that Cancer is the place to be. Remember that Misplaced Pages is written for patients, not doctors. I find that WP tends to grow in a completely disorganized fashion and, therefore, tends to become a maze where non-experts get lost.

Please reconsider or, at the very least, move this discussion in the Cancer talk page. You'll be surprised to see how active it is. Emmanuelm (talk) 14:43, 17 December 2007 (UTC) (cross-posted in the Neoplasia and Tumor talk pages)

Henoch-Schönlein purpura

There have been to changes to the symptoms list for this condition by anonymous users recently. Are these changes correct? (change upper/lower GI and 73% blistering) Rmhermen (talk) 02:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The article has a lot of contributors; probably some are watching it. So, why not read Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, then tag the article as needed to call attention to the changes you are concerned about? --Una Smith (talk) 04:00, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I've added some refs, but it could still use further verification. --Arcadian (talk) 18:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

When an anonymous user adds hard numerical data ("a recent study shows that 29% are associated with vitamin B2 (riboflavin) deficiency") that cannot easily be traced I usually remove it with an edit summary explaining that WP:V applies.

I have started expanding the HSP article. Any help is appreciated. JFW | T@lk 13:16, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Category:Eponymous diseases

Category:Eponymous diseases was deleted based on this discussion: Misplaced Pages:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_April_11#Eponymous_medical_terms, anyone else thinks that's not consensus? --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:01, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Four editors expressed keep opinions and four expressed delete opinions (five if you include Radiant). It appears Radiant was unimpressed with the keep arguments (which have to be based on policy, not just opinion). He also took into account the three completely unanimous deletion discussions below that one (which also involved multiple categories each). There appears to be consensus that Misplaced Pages should not have eponym categories, and the medical contributors failed to convince that their categories are a special case. BTW: there remain List of eponymous diseases and List of eponymous medical signs. Personally, I don't have strong opinions either way. Colin° 20:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Colin, could you direct us to the consensus on the deletion of all eponym categories? I think that having categories for this would have been mighty useful - all the sciences are replete with eponyms (Coriolis effect, Planck constant, Hayflick limit, Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test) and a category would have been rather suitable to link these together sensibly. In medicine, eponyms are of such significance that they may indicate a death sentence (Lou Gehrig's disease, Klatskin tumor) or lifelong disability (Parkinson's disease) or unpredictable tummy trouble (Crohn's disease). JFW | T@lk 21:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see much consensus there, but I admit I didn't weigh in on the discussion because I'm ambivalent about how the category is named. I have a problem with Tourette syndrome being categorized as an eponymous disease, rather than an eponymous condition, so I wasn't sure what to do when that XfD came up. If we reinstate it with a broader or more precise name, I'm on board. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

To answer JFW, the other categories for deletion were Eponymous buildings (Buildings and structures named after people; Airports named after people; Skyscrapers named after people; Trump buildings), Eponymous cities (Eponymous cities; Cities named for Lenin; Cities named for Stalin) and Eponyms (Eponymous foods; Eponymous minerals; Eponymous theories). Many of the comments made in those discussions could apply equally well for medical eponyms (and indeed, many of the medical eponym comments said nothing medical). The overriding impression was that being an eponym wasn't a distinguishing characteristic worth of a category.

I'm trying to remain neutral as to whether it was the correct decision; I'm just describing my interpretation of the events. Colin° 00:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Colin. I note that only the medical eponyms attracted "keep" votes, as opposed to the other eponyms. I'm with Steven that there may be grounds for stating that there was not the degree of consensus there that one would have expected. I'm of the opinion that medical eponyms do not constitute "overcategorisation", and I would support overturn in a deletion review. JFW | T@lk 08:41, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Andropause

Can we get an MD or two to look at the Andropause article? It is a complete mess and needs to be totally re-written. As one unsigned visitor noted, the article looks as if it was written by a barely literate self-help guru. It may also need to be tagged as controversial. Thanks, Invertzoo (talk) 18:25, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

We'll need to start with the question whether the concept exists or not. I suspect the majority of endocrinologists will give you a bored shrug if you bother them with that question. JFW | T@lk 19:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I've done some cleanup; it could use more. --Arcadian (talk) 02:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Mitochondrion

Mitochondrion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is on WP:FAC - see Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Mitochondrion. While this is technically an MCB article, it contains a section on mitochondrial disease that could - as well as the relevant subarticle - benefit from some medical help. JFW | T@lk 21:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Stealth-adapted virus

Needs attention: intro and much of article presumes accepted existence, adn cites only partisan unreliable sources. 86.145.94.23 (talk) 04:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

AfD needs some knowledgeable help

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Joint fasciitis needs some help from someone who knows something about the subject. The question at hand is whether this is a synonym for Necrotizing fasciitis or not. Thanks for any enlightenment! --Fabrictramp (talk) 17:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The author was probably referring to septic arthritis. There is no fascia in joints. JFW | T@lk 21:04, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Squamous cell carcinoma

Please see my comment at Talk:Squamous cell carcinoma. Could someone have a look at the point I'm making regarding the number of cases. Thanks. 81.109.216.245 (talk) 21:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

User JFW has dealt with it. Thanks. 81.109.216.245 (talk) 21:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Da Costa's syndrome

Is anyone watching Da Costa's syndrome these days? I did some formatting and sourcing work when I ran across it today, and I'd like to have someone else look at the 'History' section, and then at the personal webpage listed at the very end (particularly the bit that starts "Why I wrote this theory"). I'm highly suspicious of a WP:OR violation, but parts of the history are probably accurate -- although I'm not sure that they're worth saving. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The condition is largely historical (see PMID 3314950 which is an excellent review) and could be described as "irritable heart syndrome" or somesuch. Unfortunately Posturewriter (talk · contribs) has a history of publishing original research (Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/The posture theory) and has a habit of citing his own work (see Banfield MA) and his website. The new additions need to be examined in the light of this. JFW | T@lk 22:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)