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This page falls within the scope of WikiProject Manual of Style, a drive to identify and address contradictions and redundancies, improve language, and coordinate the pages that form the MoS guidelines.

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Contents 1 Proposed Structure for Medical Specialty Articles - Please Comment! 1.1 Alternate proposal 1.1.1 Scope, incl. subspecialties 1.1.2 History, incl. people 1.1.3 Investigations/diagnostics 1.1.4 Treatments 1.1.5 Ethical and medico-legal issues 1.1.6 Training 1.1.7 Research themes 1.1.8 Service Provision 1.2 Things that make you go "Hmmm" in the night 1.3 Update 2 Drug navboxes 3 The pathogen vs. the disease 4 Sections for medical tests 5 DSM IV-TR vs ICD 10 6 Anatomy 7 Summary style 8 ME/CFS therapies move 9 Archiving 10 Risk factors 11 Broken archives

Proposed Structure for Medical Specialty Articles - Please Comment!

Introduction - Introduction to the subject
Scope - Scope of the specialty
History - History of development of field
Current Practice - Global perspective on current practice
Training - Training around the world
Investigations - Investigations/diagnostics used in specialty
Treatments - Treatments used in specialty
Sub-specialities
Notable Practitioners - Within the field - historical and current
Societies - Global list of relevant societies
Research - Research themes in specialty
Textbooks and Journals - Important textbooks and journals in field
Ethics - ethical issues in field
Justinmarley (talk) 05:59, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

"Introductions" are generally discouraged. That's what the lead is for. JFW | T@lk 06:21, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Or rather, that's what the lead is. As I think Justinmarley made clear above:

"Introduction (although not usually titled as such)" --Hordaland (talk) 10:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The Notable Practitioners, Textbooks, Journals and Societies could be covered in prose within the History section (i.e., only mention them if historically significant) otherwise they might end up as lists that attract spam or be only of interest to physicians. Do we need a "Current practice" section, when presumably the Investigations & Treatments sections covers that? Could Sub-specialities be covered within Scope? Colin°^Talk 10:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that Ethical issues is a better section title than "Ethics". While different fields confront different specific dilemmas, the ethics themselves do not change.

Do we really need a "Textbooks and journals" section? It seems so... web directory-ish. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:38, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a proposed framework for excellence in articles and is constructed entirely from searching through these articles on wikipedia and counting the popularity of these topics. As such it probably serves as a starting point rather than the finished product. I agree that the notable practitioners section could be subsumed under the history section. The current practice section covers service provision e.g. in different countries and therefore extends beyond investigation and treatment. Sub-specialties could be covered within scope - would we be able to have sub-headings within scope? Textbooks and journals didn't score so highly in the overall count. However, I think that they could go in a separate section and be provided in list form - the reason being that readers would then have a straightforward and very valuable resource for further reading on the topic (in the secure knowledge that practitioners in the field place value on these textbooks. Personally speaking I would find a journals section extremely valuable myself). Although this section is 'web directory-ish', I think that combining these valuable lists with the remainder of the article will make this a powerful resource. Societies relates to current practice i.e. what societies exist that relate to this discipline today. Again this will prove useful for the reader who wants further information and can contact the relevant society. Ethical issues seems fine and probably do vary between the specialties. Obstetrics and Gynaecology (e.g. issues that conflict with religious values) might have different ethical issues to a speciality such as ITU (taking someone off the ventilator). Justinmarley (talk) 06:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

Modern textbooks and journals that are not in themselves highly notable do not deserve mention in a section of their own. Any such "Further reading" section is for the general reader wanting to learn about Neurology in general, for example, not for the trainee physician wanting to become a neurologist. I can't really imagine why a general reader would be interested in a list of current neurology journals. We aren't a directory, so we don't list societies for the purpose of readers contacting them. Unless you can say something interesting about the society, it probably doesn't deserve mention. It would really help if some knowledgeable editors worked on a Speciality article, bringing it up to a decent standard, so we could have an example that works and serves as a model. Colin°^Talk 17:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Gosh, I see so many problems with this proposed structure that I don't know where to start, so I'll leave it to others and say that I think our current structure is much better. I can't see anything in this proposal that could be well applied to Tourette syndrome, and this proposal actually introduces things like Societies, yikes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

This proposal is for specialties only. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:16, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

For example? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:32, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Obstetrics and gynecology, for example, right Justinmarley? I agree with others above: Notable people sections aren't great because they're spambait, plus I'd like to see sections that are going to be primarily lists discouraged in favor of prose. So subsuming the notable people under history would be a good idea, because you're going to have to mention the people anyway when you're discussing the events. Similarly, I would subsume 'Societies' under history as well: again it's listy and the notability is questionable if you don't have it in prose (i.e. if it's just the name of the society with no other info). I also agree that the Current Practice section would be unnecessary, and it's so vague we wouldn't be getting consistent stuff with this as a guideline anyway. I'm also in agreement that there shouldn't be a textbooks and journals section: again it's listy, and I don't know if 'it's helpful' is that good of an argument. However, I'm not opposed to a 'Further reading' section. I'm also in favor of renaming 'Introduction' to 'Lead' and linking WP:LEAD. Lastly, I think we'd need to explain what 'Investigations' means if we're going to adopt this as a guideline, it's not clear to me anyway. delldot talk 18:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, got it, struck my premature and clueless comment. Sorry for multi-tasking and not digesting carefully, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:43, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Alternate proposal

With the above thoughts in mind, plus stealing ideas from MEDMOS, here's another proposal:

Lead - Introduction to the subject, see WP:LEAD
Scope - Scope of the specialty
Sub-specialities
History - History of development of field, including notable people
Training - Training around the world
Investigations - Investigations/diagnostics used in specialty
Treatments - Treatments used in specialty
Research - Research themes in specialty
Ethical and medicolegal issues - ethical and legal issues in field
See also - avoid if possible, use wikilinks in the main article
Notes
References
Further reading or Bibliography - paper resources such as books, not web sites
External links - avoid if possible

Thoughts? delldot talk 18:30, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Sub-specialties (if any...) could be indented under Scope. Training looks perhaps misplaced, perhaps to bottom (above See also)? Or Ethical.., Training and Research as last 3. Research may need more frequent revision than the others, major points therefrom being moved up & included in History. --Hordaland (talk) 19:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I like the idea of having sub-specialties as a subsection of scope. How about investigations, treatments, training, research, ethical? That way you're keeping the more doing stuff-related topics together and the more abstract things (research and ethics) together. delldot talk 19:53, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Better. How about "Scope - Scope of the specialty; identify important sub-specialities" rather than a separate subsection for subspecialities? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, I just hoped that ethical is a part of doing ;-) No problem with your suggestion, delldot. --Hordaland (talk) 21:11, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

*Blushes* Good point. delldot talk 21:52, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Scope - do people agree this should be included yes/no (just moving through the above template point by point)Justinmarley (talk) 18:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

Pretty obviously has to be there. Perhaps someone wants to discuss the name of it - possibly the name of it varies among articles - but the content is necessary. IMO. --Hordaland (talk) 22:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Why not, instead, ask about all the points instead of just one. The last 5 don't need discussion. Could do it as below. (If lousy idea, just delete.) --Hordaland (talk) 22:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Scope, incl. subspecialties

I support this provided subspecialties is included as a subheading Justinmarley (talk) 23:30, 19 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

History, incl. people

I support this - should be perhaps towards the end of the document Justinmarley (talk) 23:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

Logical to have History w/people early-on in these types of articles, I think. Ideally the section gives a timeline of what was known when, which is a helpful and interesting extension of Scope. --Hordaland (talk) 10:02, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

If history is at the beginning of the article then perhaps it should lead onto current practice or current service provision Justinmarley (talk) 18:52, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Investigations/diagnostics

I support this Justinmarley (talk) 23:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

Treatments

I support this provided it is written as treatment Justinmarley (talk) 23:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

Ethical and medico-legal issues

I support this - should it be at the end of the article? Justinmarley (talk) 23:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

Training

I support this - should there be a breakdown according to different geographical locations? Justinmarley (talk) 23:34, 19 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

Research themes

I support this Justinmarley (talk) 23:35, 19 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

Service Provision

I propose this as another section Justinmarley (talk) 23:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

Do you have an example or two from existing articles? What's to be included here?

P.S. Why do you, Justinmarley, always sign your comments twice? The name before the time/date is sufficient, and the way most people do it. --Hordaland (talk) 10:06, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

The GP article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_practice) is an excellent example. Thanks for the tip about signing by the way Justinmarley (talk) 18:49, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Things that make you go "Hmmm" in the night

Editors are invited to consider the dispute at Talk:Liaison psychiatry. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

My work on the Liaison Psychiatry article has hit a brick wall because there are no current guidelines on structuring information about specialties. We could use the Liaison Psychiatry Article as a pilot for developing a generic structure which could then be applied to other articles. Having such a structure would in my opinion be extremely helpful for medical articles which from the research I have undertaken and shown above, reveals a heterogenous group of articles. May I make a suggestion of going through the proposed list above, point by point, agreeing consensus on whether it should be included or not Justinmarley (talk) 22:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)justinmarley

(belatedly) there are actually, I will try and sort something out. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:32, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I've just written a long, B-class article: Sleep medicine. I tried to use the mal suggested on this Talk page, but could make the order of things fit only just sort of. I ended up with this:

• Intro
• Scope
• History
• Training and certification
• Diagnosis

• Tests and other tools

• Treatment
• [Research themes - not yet done]*
• [See also - none]
• References
• External links

* (Unless I can shorten the whole article appreciably, Sleep research will have to be its own article, just barely referred to here.)

(Still missing: almost anything in the 'round the world department. But that will necessarily be a large part of 'Sleep research'.)

Not to say that this is applicable everywhere, but, in this order, the sections lead into each other in this case. FYI. --Hordaland (talk) 10:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks promising, just be bold and run with it. I was a bit hasty in saying there was a specific template, but this shouldn't be too difficult. it is similar to psychiatry..Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Update

Based on the various suggestions here, I've added a list of suggested sections to MEDMOS. The particular trigger was the current state of Public health. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:11, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Drug navboxes

I've recently noticed that many of our drug navboxes use spaced hyphens ( - ) as list separators, which goes against the Manual of Style (and the conventions of decent typography :). I propose that all drug navboxes be standardized to use {{·}} instead of hyphens (or commas, etc.) Some templates (such as {{NSAIDs}}) already use the middot separator, as suggested in the documentation of {{Navbox}} and Wikipedia:Lists—let's make it a standard. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 17:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Support. --Arcadian (talk) 20:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Support. Much prettier too. JFW | T@lk 20:49, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Weak support -- consistancy is important, hence my support. But comma-separated lists are more compact and as an example where the use of {{·}} will not look as good (and may mean having to spread the navbox over more lines) is {{Birth control methods}}. David Ruben ^Talk 23:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

• Well, that's a valid concern—but the difference is actually barely visible, except in the edit window; compare them both below:

v • d • e Birth control methods Comparison Comparison of birth control methods Behavioral Avoiding vaginal intercourse: Anal sex, Oral sex, Non-penetrative sex, Masturbation, Abstinence Including vaginal intercourse: Fertility awareness, Calendar-based methods (rhythm, etc.), Withdrawal, Breastfeeding infertility Barrier or spermicidal Condom, Female condom, Diaphragm, Cervical cap (incl. Lea's), Contraceptive sponge, Spermicide Hormonal Combined: Oral ('the Pill'), Contraceptive patch, NuvaRing, Injectable Progestogen only: Oral ('minipill'), Depo-Provera, Norplant/Jadelle, Implanon Anti-estrogen Ormeloxifene (Centchroman) Post-intercourse Emergency contraception (pills or copper IUD) Intra-uterine IUD (copper or progestogen), IUS (progestogen) Abortion Surgical, Medical (RU-486/abortion pill) Sterilization Male: Vasectomy Female: Tubal ligation, Essure

v • d • e Birth control methods Comparison: Comparison of birth control methods Behavioral: Avoiding vaginal intercourse: Anal sex · Oral sex · Non-penetrative sex · Masturbation · Abstinence Including vaginal intercourse: Fertility awareness · Calendar-based methods (rhythm, etc.) · Withdrawal · Breastfeeding infertility Barrier or spermicidal: Condom · Female condom · Diaphragm · Cervical cap (incl. Lea's) · Contraceptive sponge · Spermicide Hormonal: Combined: Oral ('the Pill') · Contraceptive patch · NuvaRing · Injectable Progestogen only: Oral ('minipill') · Depo-Provera · Norplant/Jadelle · Implanon Anti-estrogen: Ormeloxifene (a.k.a. Centchroman) Post-intercourse: Emergency contraception (pills or copper IUD) Intra-uterine: IUD (copper or progestogen) · IUS (progestogen) Abortion: Surgical · Medical (RU-486/abortion pill) Sterilization: Male: Vasectomy Female: Tubal ligation · Essure

—Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, since no one has really voiced any opposition, I'll go ahead and start implementing this. Has anyone though of the wording that will constitute the actual guideline? :) I though of something along these lines:

Navigational boxes should follow a standardized style. Items should be separated by a middot template ({{·}}) followed by a single space; the use of hyphens as list separators is not recommended. As when choosing article titles, drugs should be referred to by their International Nonproprietary Names, using piped links when required. More information about creating navigational templates can be found in the documentation of Template:Navbox.

—Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Are commas still OK as a secondary separator (in parentheses)? I think it makes nesting easier to read. --Arcadian (talk) 12:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why not. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Also, could you add something about the punctuation notes (§, ‡, etc) used at the bottom of Template:HIVpharm? I don't know who first introduced them, but I think they're very useful. But if we're going to use them, it would be good to document it as a standard somewhere. --Arcadian (talk) 17:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

And also -- this isn't just for the pharm navs, right? I'm assuming this applies for disease and procedure navs too, but I wanted to make sure. --Arcadian (talk) 17:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe the footnotes were first introduced by Hopping (talk · contribs), though I'm not sure. I've since taken to using them, as has Carlo Banez, and they are now in place in several templates. There's a "traditional" order of symbols for sequential footnotes, although there isn't much consensus on what it is; Robert Bringhurst recommends asterisk (*), dagger (†), and double dagger (‡), and our article on footnotes has them followed by the section sign (§), double vertical bar or "parallels" (‖), and pilcrow (¶). The Chicago Manual of Style substitutes # for the pilcrow (*, †, ‡, §, ‖, #).

And yes, this would apply to all medicine-related navboxes. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 19:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

When will this be added? --Arcadian (talk) 12:26, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I have added this content. --Arcadian (talk) 16:36, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I seriously neglected this after all the MEDRS hoopla below—will polish the wording tomorrow. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:18, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The pathogen vs. the disease

We really need to make a decision here. How do we separate the article about the pathogen from the article about the disease? It happens time and again, and we have discussed it here without resolution. But if we're really going to clean up articles, we need to firm up the policy. I'm working on Heliobacter pylori, the bacteria, some have theorized, that might be responsible for gastric ulcers (I'm not going to argue one way or the other about it). So, is the article about the bacterium? Or is it about gastric ulcers? If it's about a pathogenic bacteria, how do we follow MEDMOS, or do we follow some microbiology MOS (if there is one). Do we merge the gastric ulcer article to H. pylori? If this were the only problem, maybe we could figure it out. But honestly, do we need a chickenpox and Varicella zoster virus article? We merged shingles to Herpes zoster. But honestly, the two zosters are the same virus with two different manifestations. So they are same virus causing the same disease. H. pylori causes only one disease, but gastric ulcers may have multiple causes. I'm going to reorganize H. pylori to fit MEDMOS, but I'm not sure that makes complete sense.

We need advice here. And let's make a decision, not discuss endlessly, then the everyone moves on to another issues, and this lays fallow. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

So, in the first step of cleaning up the article to maintain its FA status, I have to determine if "Classification" means taxonomic or disease. And the system falls apart. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:09, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

And I just looked up Poliomyelitis, which was just promoted to FA vs. poliovirus, which isn't FA. No help there. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:14, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

And now, Influenza vs. Orthomyxoviridae. So I'm guessing we have a policy, which helps with the article. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:17, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

In general, I favor keeping disease articles separate from microorganism articles. If they are both quite small, then a merge might be acceptable, but there are so many non-overlapping things to say about each that in general I think separate is better.

I don't think you should reorg H. pylori to fit MEDMOS. I think you should make it fit the (limited) suggestions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Prokaryotes and protists, and parallel Escherichia coli. The possibly relevant sections there, BTW, are:

1. Strains
2. Biology and biochemistry
3. Normal role
4. Role in disease
5. Laboratory diagnosis
6. Antibiotic therapy and resistance
7. Vaccination
8. Role in biotechnology
9. Model organism

It might be relevant to add things like veterinary connections or routes of transmission. Would it be helpful to create such a list here? I haven't found anything similar at any of the relevant projects. We could invite them to help us create such a list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with WhatamIdoing -- the pathogen and the disease should be kept separate. A disease may involve multiple pathogens, and a pathogen may cause multiple diseases. Merging them together is not a sustainable solution. --Arcadian (talk) 03:14, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

GrahamColm and I struggled with this issue on Rotavirus, which is an article about the virus and the disease it causes. I even produced a draft version of a split into two articles: one virus, one disease. It worked but so does the combined one, which Graham preferred. I think often the split works best as WP likes to classify things and stick info boxes on them. I don't think the chicken pox articles would be improved by a merge. Unless there's a specific name for the ulcers/cancer caused solely by Heliobacter pylori, your stuck with describing those within the article. So I don't think there's a hard rule. Colin°^Talk 09:17, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

If a pathogen is only known for causing one disease, and that disease is only caused by that pathogen (e.g. measles/measles virus) then that's fine; only size restriction is then a determinant. Any other combination necessitates separate articles, with the "pathogen" article containing brief but relevant content about the disease and vice versa, with copious cross-references using the {{main}} template. JFW | T@lk 11:29, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm bringing this up a month later now. So, is there any way to merge HIV and AIDS, since the disease and the pathogen are inextricably linked. HIV just causes AIDS, and AIDS is just caused by HIV. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 15:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that would be a good idea. Even in such a case, an article on the pathogen could elaborate on molecular biology etc, which would inevitably be split from a growing disease article. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 16:12, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd settle for the content being somewhat more rationalized between those two articles. I've never understood why prevention of HIV transmission is primarily in AIDS instead of in HIV. Condoms do not directly prevent AIDS, but they do directly prevent HIV transmission. Leaving that aside, OM, I think those two articles are much too long to contemplate a merge. If you want to try -- {{mergefrom}} and {{mergeto}} and start the discussion over there. I'd be really, really surprised if it was approved, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Condoms are a clinical issue so they belong in AIDS: HIV should be an article on true virological issues. So I agree, it's unlikely to be approved. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 17:13, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

There is a lot of repetitiveness between the articles. And I don't agree that you could distinguish where you describe condoms. It prevents HIV transmission...it doesn't prevent AIDS. See, this can go on and on. I really think we should be rational and make a guideline on this matter. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 17:34, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Sections for medical tests

I ran across ACTH stimulation test today (you are invited to join the fun: a really nice, relatively Wiki-inexperienced editor has done some good work there) and it made me think that we could use a suggested article order for medical tests. Presumably the same information should be covered in each of them. Here's my protolist, which you can change as you see fit:

1. Types (if more than one kind or variant of this test)
2. Indications (including contraindications)
3. Preparation
4. Test procedure
5. Adverse effects
6. Interpretation of results (including accuracy/specificity)
7. Mechanism (how the test works, if it's interesting)
8. Legal issues (such as whether special counseling is mandated, if any)
9. History (of the test)

As a general guide, it needs to be flexible enough to cover a handful of articles. I have considered a semi-random selection of tests from Category:Medical tests in thinking about this: Arterial blood gas, Bone mineral density, Fluid deprivation test, Pap test, Pregnancy test, and Skin allergy test in forming my suggestions and think that it probably covers them all.

What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I like the order, except perhaps mechanism. I reckon that should go before preparation, just like 'pathophysiology' comes before stuff like diagnosis on diseases. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 22:19, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, not sure, but could Indications be included in Interpretation? Agree mechanism should be earlier in listLeeVJ (talk) 22:24, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Yep. agree interpretation should be further up the list, otherwise looks ok. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

DSM IV-TR vs ICD 10

Hey all, the former is becoming lingua franca in psychiatric diagnosis with many studies in Europe and England using it rather than ICD 10. Unfortunately I cannot find a &(%$(%^##^@%( reference to confirm this. This becomes an issue when working up conditions like borderline personality disorder and major depression for FAC, as much of the research (eg on MDD) then doesn't fit with the article parameters if we use ICD10s depressive disorders. I am proposing we amend the Wikipedia:MEDMOS#Naming_conventions to add DSM IV-TR in the realm of psychiatric disorders. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:52, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Concur; in the case of Tourette syndrome, there is no reason to refer to ICD-10's frightful long title. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Per PMID 16220218, "DSM-IV is the most widely used diagnostic classification system in research, whereas ICD-10 is more widely used clinically." --Arcadian (talk) 04:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't have access to the full text, but the abstract suggests that they are referring only to Denmark. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:46, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I, too, have only seen the abstract. One could argue that it applies only to Denmark, but it certainly appears to me to be intended to apply universally (at least within Europe). --Hordaland (talk) 07:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It is a relatively obscure journal, so I do not have the access to it, too. From the abstract, it appears to be a value judgment on the part of authors, part of the background section. According to the newly-minted WP:MEDRS guidelines, previous work "sections are typically less reliable than reviews". The most recent study specifically concerned with the relative frequency of use for DSM and ICD (PMID 18408417) found that DSM is used about 5 times as often as ICD. Paul Gene (talk) 10:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I've updated it as there seems to be solid consensus support for this. Colin°^Talk 11:10, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to note, that Danish study is only summarizing the findings of a 2002 article that it cites - International surveys on the use of ICD-10 and related diagnostic systems EverSince (talk) 17:55, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Anatomy

Should appropriate parts of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anatomy/Guidelines be merged into this document? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. JFW | T@lk 23:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Here are the bits that I think might be useful (note that I've copyedited a fair bit and would appreciate error correction):

Naming conventions

Y Done

• Most articles on human anatomy use the international standard Terminologia Anatomica (TA), which is the American English version of the Latin. Editor judgment is needed for terms used in non-human anatomy, developmental anatomy, and other problematic terms. The online version of Dorland's Medical Dictionary at Mercksource.com has terms that conform (look for 'TA' after the word).

Sections

Y Done

• Clinical relevance (for discussing diseases and other medical associations with the structure)
• Etymology
• Development (for discussing developmental biology, i.e. embryological/fetal, associated with structure)
• Comparative anatomy (for discussing non-human anatomy in articles that are predominantly human-based)

Not sure where to stick this

Y Done

• • Please include the Latin (or Latinized Greek) name of the subject, as this is very helpful to interwiki users and for people working with older scientific publications.
  • Etymologies are often helpful. Features that are derived from other anatomical features (that still has shared term in it) should refer the reader to the structure that provided the term, not to the original derivation. For example, the etymology section of Deltoid tuberosity should refer the reader to the deltoid muscle, not to the definition 'delta-shaped, triangular'. The etymology in Deltoid muscle, however, should identify the Greek origin of the term.

Any other sections? Any suggestions for where to put the where-and-why of etymology? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:31, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

"Subclinical variation"? Also, the paragraph at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Anatomy/Guidelines#Paired_structures might be useful to integrate. --Arcadian (talk) 17:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I've set up a "Sections" section, and incorporated these ideas into a "form and function" notion at the top. Does that seem reasonable to you? Also, I'm thinking that the etymology explanations will need to go into a section similar to ===Trivia===. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Summary style

I always expect WP:SUMMARY to actually say something about summarizing information. (It doesn't; WP:SUMMARY is largely about how to comply with WP:SIZE by splitting an article when it gets to be too long.) I've seen several medicine-related articles that go into all sorts of details about the study after study (all primary literature, of course). It's all "prospective observational trial with 233 participants enrolled and 218 completing the study" -- not an encyclopedia article, in other words. The current version of Wilderness diarrhea#Degree of risk is a good (bad) example.

I have been wondering whether we should address this by adding a paragraph to WP:MEDMOS#Audience. I'm not really sure how to say "You are supposed to be writing an encyclopedia here", but perhaps something that makes these points would do:

Information about clinical trials and other medical investigations should be reported in an encyclopedic fashion, at a level of detail that is appropriate for the general reader. Generally, this requires a focus on the main results instead of details of study design. Do not write your own comprehensive review of the scientific literature.

I'm sure that it could be much better put. In fact, I'm pretty sure that with a solid night's sleep, I could do better. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:52, 4 September 2008 (UTC) (who is finally off to bed)

There's a big difference, though, between a trial of 2,000 patients, 200 patients and 20 patients. And there's a big difference between a prospective and retrospective trial. These differences can be important when you have different trials with conflicting results. See for example the article on Management of skin and soft-tissue infection in the 4 September 2008 NEJM. If I'm reading an article, I'd like to have that degree of specificity. That's especially important when you're writing about a controversy with less-than-perfect evidence.

That's the level of detail you'd see in, say, WebMD, which is written for both doctors and an intelligent general audience. Nbauman (talk) 07:24, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with both of you. WP should mostly state facts with encyclopaedic confidence cited via footnotes to secondary sources. Explicit mention of study after study is a warning sign that the editor may be trying to build a case themselves, especially when directly sourced to the primary studies rather than to a quality secondary source. That Wilderness article cites both primary studies and also good reviews -- but largely ignores the reviews, which repeatedly claim that although backpackers in the US get diarrhoea, it almost certainly isn't from drinking surface water and so water sterilisation shouldn't be the focus of health campaigns (personal hygiene is the problem). The article needs work because the text disagrees with the best sources. If the editors stick to the secondary sources, it becomes much easier to write confident text on the risk and not distract and overload the reader with studies they don't have the tools to interpret.

The History section of an article is an obvious place for seminal studies to be mentioned in detail. Elsewhere, if a study is explicitly mentioned at all, then I agree this should generally be kept brief. However, sometimes detail is required for honesty (as Nbauman points out)—it was small scale; uncontrolled; only looked at the US; had no long-term follow-up—or because it is actually interesting. For example, the fact that the hikers spent an average of "139 days" on the trail made me go "woa, that really is a long hike" where some readers might think 5 days was a long hike. While that fact could have been simplified to "several months", the duration is important and "long" wouldn't have been adequate. Having said that, I think WhatamIdoing is right that those explicit studies probably don't need to be mentioned at all and the conclusions in the reviews should have been presented instead.

In the proposed text, the first sentence actually seems to encourage mention of studies ("should be reported"). Even "main results" focusses too much on one primary study rather than moving the focus to what secondary sources, reviewing the literature, say. I like the last sentence. How about something like:

Editors should not attempt to write their own comprehensive review of the literature. Instead, state the facts, conclusions and opinions found in reliable sources. The primary studies that helped form those conclusions and opinions are often not required to be explicitly mentioned, outside of a History section, unless they are particularly interesting or where details of the study's limitations are important to the reader.

I'm not saying the above is ready for inclusion, just some thoughts. Colin°^Talk 10:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Nbauman, I agree that the size of a study can be important, but that information can be contextualized instead of being reported in detail. 200 people is a rather small study for Hypertension. The same number of participants would be an unbelievably large study for ODDD (243 cases ever reported in the literature; approximately 100 cases believed to be living at any time). Therefore I favor using descriptive words, like "large" or "small", or by signaling the informed editor's general level of confidence in other ways: "Wilderness diarrhea is most often caused by poor handwashing and dishwashing techniques,^{[review][review]} although some researchers believe that improper disinfection of water is also a significant cause.^[primary]

The bigger issue, however, is that in most of these cases, the primary literature requires special description specifically because it is weak, and therefore the correct response is to exclude it entirely.

Thinking about other pages that have this problem, such as Freeman-Sheldon_syndrome#Cause, advice to not duplicate bibliographic information in the text might be helpful to new editors. FSS (a rare disease) has a lot of sentences that begin with "Toydemir et al (2006) showed that...", which is poor style, even if for such a rare condition these 20-person studies are appropriately sized. This has been a problem in previous versions of Da Costa's syndrome as well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The "Toydemir et al (2006) showed that..." style comes from copying the style in some scientific papers. Another aspect of scientific papers that gets copied is directly citing primary studies and we already have a guideline for that :-). Perhaps we need some advice to editors who are over-familiar with that style in either their reading or writings. However, just because you see bad style in certain articles, doesn't automatically mean we need some explicit guidance against it. Legislating against all misdemeanours can cause more problems than it is worth. Is this a widespread problem and have people faced any difficulty when correcting it?

In your example, you need to be careful with the "although some researchers believe" doesn't break WP:WEIGHT. Far better to have that second statement also attributed to the same reviews. And if those reviews thoroughly dismiss the idea, then so should WP (perhaps by not mentioning it). Colin°^Talk 20:19, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

ME/CFS therapies move

Discussion of names happening here (again?). Per Colin's comment, please centralize. WLU (t) (c) ^{(rules - simple rules)} 18:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Archiving

This page is rather long (120K), so I'm attempting to set up MiszaBot to automatically archive things for us. I've set a relatively long (45 days) wait time, at least to start. Hopefully I haven't screwed up anything in the template. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. I've set it to a 150KB maximum, too. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 17:57, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Risk factors

Considering Wikipedia:MEDMOS#Diseases.2Fdisorders.2Fsyndromes: Where do you normally put risk factors, such as "obesity is a risk factor for diabetes" or "being over the age of 50 is a risk factor for this kind of cancer"? Under ==Signs and symptoms==, ==Diagnosis==, or something else? (Assume that there aren't enough risk factors to merit an entire section on its own.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Epidemiology (or Causes if there's a direct link). Colin°^Talk 21:12, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Broken archives

We have two archive 3s: Archive3 and Archive_3. Can somebody fix this? Colin°^Talk 11:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

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