Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Clinical medicine/Archive 5

Archive: 1 2 3 4

Announcement: Please have a look at the nascent Medical classification scheme here, add to it, correct it, modify it, whatever seems fit. It would be good to have a sound logical scheme worked out before trying to implement it.

You may also want to add and argue at the Very Important Pages and Where They're At.

This is the doctors' mess (or lounge, if you're from the USA). In order to streamline the project, this page contains sections where participants can raise ideas for general discussion and debriefing. To communicate recent work and seek collaboration or peer-review of pages, please see WikiProject Clinical medicine/Collaboration.

Refactored

The page was getting unmanageably large, so I've created Archive 4 and refactored this one. Hope that's OK with all of you. I've still left some pretty old discussions here, but curiously Dr. Ruben replied to an older message just some minutes ago that got swept up into the archive before I realized what was happening. The diff is here.

Regards—Encephalon | ^ζ 20:46:08, 2005-08-15 (UTC)

Mess rules

• There aren't many rules. Everybody is welcome here to discuss the project, and this is an informal place for informal thinking.
• Introduce new topics under appropriate existing headings or at the bottom under a level 3 header (e.g. ===Recombinant amyloid===).
• Please do not shout.
• No brawling.
• Please rinse your own coffee cups.

Old pages

A number of the oldest of the old pages listed on Special:Ancientpages are obscure diseases. It would be great if some of these could be dealt with by being categorized. Listed below are some of the oldest. - SimonP 17:13, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

• Lemierre's syndrome
• Morvan's syndrome
• Central pontine myelinolysis this is a neurological disorder most often associated with rapid repair of hyponatremia
• Arthrogryposis multiplex congenita this is a congenital multiple contracture syndrome. I think it has more than one cause (i.e., not a single distinct genetic disease).
• Say Meyer syndrome
• Oligoclonal bands
• Cenani Lenz syndactylism is a very obscure and minor congenital limb malformation syndrome.
• Mucopolysaccharidosis type VII Sly syndrome This is an inborn error of metabolism affecting the CNS and various other organs.
• Alpers disease This is a congenital birth defect syndrome involving a skull malformation.
• Alternating hemiplegia is an acquired neurological dysfunction.

Seems to me that all these articles now have been categorized. Alex.tan 21:01, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Category:Medicine

I've been moving articles from Category:Medicine to the appropriate subcategories, but there are a lot of articles and some help would be appreciated. In general, medical articles are categorised in two types categories: by the medical specialism they belong in (e.g. Category:Pulmonology) and by their etiology (e.g. Category:Autoimmune diseases and/or Category:Eponymous diseases). JFW | T@lk 22:35, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'll keep trying to lend a hand here! Erich 04:57, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Seasons greeting

gedday all, hope all you northerners are keeping warm and hope all is well. Erich 04:57, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Doctor, are you there?

Geez guys, it's boringly quiet here. I've noticed that the turnover rate of doctors here is fairly high. Has anyone seen User:Kd4ttc lately?

Anyway, please read Talk:Deaf and Talk:Models of deafness and shudder. JFW | T@lk 00:16, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

dude! you're a fanatic!! good on you! I'm not sure if I can cope much more with deafness!! One of my colleagues just pointed me at the Australian Medical Council website - where they have a mock exam. After 50 questions (takes about 20min) you get a break down of your performance.

I gotta confess I was a bit anxious doing the test but was relieved to obtain the giddying ranking of 'satisfactory' (for the record I scored: 39/50 Mastery: 12/15) apparently I guess better than I thought!

go on give it a go and fess up your score! Erich 14:16, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Total Correct: 32/50; Mastery Correct: 12/15; Performance: Satisfactory I did it in 14 minutes, but I plead a whole lotta years since I had to think about old folks and pregnant women. Not one single question about endocrine or metabolic diseases! alteripse 02:50, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

yep it's definitely an exam for the jack of all trades. were you happy that the question on the astmatic kid had a single correct answer? I felt agrieved about getting that one wrong - given the paucity of detail in the question. go on JFW... 'fess up: how'd you go? Erich 13:15, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Total correct 35/50, mastery correct 13/15, performance: satisfactory. JFW | T@lk 00:12, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think I got that one right but I can't remember the choices. alteripse 14:34, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

PMID

Template:PMID was unnecessary. The Wiki now recognises PMID codes and automatically creates a link, much like ISBN codes. Please disregard the template and simply use PMID 4957203 (see, no template!) JFW | T@lk 23:31, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

thanks; very useful information! Courtland 2005-01-31 USA ~19:20 EST

geez that is cool! when did they do that? (hey jfd are you going to take the test?? ) Erich 12:50, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Just added pages for PMID and Wikipedia:PMID similiar to Wikipedia:ISBN. I'm not sure exactly how it works. Petersam 22:56, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Template:PMID is proposed to be deleted - Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:PMID Petersam 21:18, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Petersam, you're working much too hard :-) Compliments on that awesome job that I was reluctant too take on... JFW | T@lk 21:51, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Neurologic disorders" vs "Neurology"

Hi. While going through the old pages above listed by SimonP, I wondered whether articles on ... arghh... diseases affecting the nervous system should go under what I thought sounded right (and what I started doing) Category:Neurologic disorders or whether, as some have already done, put them in Category:Neurology. I was figuring that "Neurologic disorders" would fit as a subcategory of Category:Diseases but that "Neurology" would not because it's also the study of normal neural tissue function. What's the consensus view here? Alex.tan 05:02, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Diseases should be in both categories. Neurology is the field that deals with them, and neurologic disorders is the pathophysiological category. All autoimmune diseases are in Category:Autoimmune diseases, even though they are also under Category:Rheumatology, Category:Pulmonology etc. JFW | T@lk 22:56, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nephrotoxicity

Hepatotoxicity and neurotoxicity were extant, but today I finally started nephrotoxicity. Could all of you kindly add the drugs you know, and the mechanism? It is still very short. JFW | T@lk 22:56, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On the topic of "Category:Disorders"

this is in regard to the listing of Category:Disorders on the Categories for Deletion page

In the discussion, we have gotten to the point of considering whether a "disorder" is a "disease" or vice versa. One proposal on the table is to delete Category:Disorders (the actual action would be a renaming to a specific disorder type, but that is tantamount to a delete). Another proposal is to keep Category:Disorders and actually place Category:Diseases as a sub-category of it (the reasoning is found in the discussion linked from above). One question is whether something like "growth disorder" as a category can be considered a viable child of "diseases" as a category; if it cannot, then maintaining a "disorders" category is pretty much a requirement.

It would be helpful if one or another of you could step into the discussion and provide some input that might help a decision be made.

Thanks in advance. Courtland 03:51, 2005 Mar 9 (UTC)

Automatic tool for creating PubMed citations

In trying to cite my sources, I've found WikiBib very useful. However, that tool requires that you provide all the info (e.g. article title, journal, author, etc.), and I'm a bit too lazy for that. So I created a tool that can generate citations given just a PubMed ID, and I figured someone here might find it useful too. Cheers, David Iberri | Talk 05:56, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Wikiportal: Medicine

Work on the wikiportal Medicine has begun. I have added categories and wikiprojects, for other things your help will be needed. --Eleassar777 21:55, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Categoryectomy

Hey docs, it's very very quiet here. Would all of you mind helping out with obesity? I'm trying to get this article to featured article status in the view of all the media attention on this problem.

Also, I'm tidying up Category:Medicine again. Some unscrupulous individuals think that they can categorise a medical article by slapping this category on it. Quod non. Please help sorting them out if you've got a minute. JFW | T@lk 07:58, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hey Dudes! just saying hello... nice to drop by and see you two still soldering on! I'm now at a kid's hospital (for 3/12s anyway) and life remains busy. My gasboys project is doing reasonably well and I'm still trying to encourage my colleagues to take an interest in wiki's. best wishes to all Erich 15:54, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

(Looking up from trench) Oh, it's you. Why don't you hop down in here with us and give us a hand instead of playing the tourist? alteripse 17:41, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Infobox

I propose using an infobox on pages for diseases and disorders. Here is a mockup I've come up with: Template:DiseaseDisorder_infobox. An example of how this would look is available here. --Arcadian 00:37, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The way you have designed the template invites a whole host of problems. It presumes that signs, symptoms, diagnosis and therapy are clear-cut. They are not. For example, you stated that gastroenteritis is treated with loperamide. That is generally, but there are too many "yes, but..." situations to blankly put this in the template.

The template contains entries for incidence and prevalence. These numbers are very dependant on population and location (e.g. hepatitis in Southeast Asia), again defying the purpose of a template.

I can only imagine one use for this template, which is linking numerical data, such as the ICD code and DSM IVR classification, as you rightly did. Otherwise, I am firmly opposed to its use on disease-related pages. JFW | T@lk 03:55, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I have revised the template to meet your specs. You can click here to see how it looks. In the long term, I'd hope we could consider putting some of those other categories back in, and I think I'm more optimistic than you are that we can find mutually agreeable sources (for example, we could use the ICD codes for symptoms and signs, and I know there are WHO sources for incidence and prevalence), and that the use of this template could be a useful nudge to the editors on some of the disease pages that are currently disasters. The field I'd argue for most is a Cause field, because I think that will help focus people's attention when they edit pages. But for now, if the only two fields we agree on are ICD and DSM, could we go forward with that, try it for a few months, and then if it goes smoothly, perhaps we could consider gradually expanding it? --Arcadian 04:32, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What if we redesigned it for unequivocal codes & terms such as ICD9, DSM IV, OMIM number, defective gene, defective enzyme, causal organism? Many diseases would have an association with more than 1 item in some of the fields (e.g., more than 1 OMIM number or infectious agent). We could list up to 5 of each, and if more are applicable, the box would say "multiple, see article". I am relatively lukewarm about this because I am realizing that most of the disease articles I have written have multiple genes or enzymes involved. OK forget it. I do agree entirely with you that there is no value to the boxes as offered with a few arbitrary signs and symptoms. Nice try by Arcadian; give him credit for effort anyway. alteripse 04:28, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• A thought in response to Alteripse's comments: perhaps we could address your concerns by putting fields in for "Parent" and "Children". For many of the diseases where there is ambiguity about the cause (for example, Gastroenteritis) we could use that as a consistent interface to drill down or drill up and resolve ambiguity. --Arcadian 04:41, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Are parent and children some type of technical database terms describing a hierarchy? Explain a little what you mean? alteripse 05:00, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• For example, if there was a template on the Anemia page, because the causative agent is dependent upon the type, we wouldn't list the cause on that page, but instead say 'see children'. In the children section of the template, we would have links to the kinds of anemia, like Iron deficiency anemia or Megaloblastic anemia. Then, on those pages, the 'parent' field would have Anemia. Because the different kids of anemia present in similar ways, we could include the signs and symptoms on that parent page. --Arcadian 05:13, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Uh, in the present form it seems Leukemia has a DSM code (quod non, unless they have started coding the third axis now). I support Alteripse's idea to link other "discrete" values such as OMIM numbers. In theory MeSH headers could also be linked.

Without wanting to sound patronising, I think Arcadian is being too optimistic about medicine being systematic. What is considered a "cause" for a disease is often dependant on numerous risk factors. I would have serious misgivings about a definite "cause" being stamped on every medical article; again it smacks of oversimplification.

As for "parent" and "child", this is indeed confusing. Even iron deficiency has multiple unrelated causes. Let's just not do this. The category system is presently in use to classify diseases by the type (autoimmune, malignant, infectious) and by the specialism that deals with them. That should be sufficient. JFW | T@lk 05:17, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Per the above, I've added MeSH and OMIM. --Arcadian 11:23, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Haven't heard any feedback for a while -- any other changes that people want to the template before I start putting it on some of the pages? --Arcadian 19:35, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

We are more dubious than ungrateful and don't want you to waste your efforts if we end up not being able to use the boxes without introducing errors. Why don't you put a couple of your proposed boxes on a couple of hematology or endocrinology articles (look at the ones JFW and I have been working on) and let us see if they might be applicable before you do a whole lot? alteripse 19:42, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't want to put more time into building the disease infoboxes if JFW is just going to revert them again as he did earlier this week, so I'd rather find out beforehand if they're okay before I invest the time. When he performed his reversions, he asked that I come to this page and get a consensus before proceeding, so that's what I'm doing here. To help facilitate consensus, I have removed everything but ICD from the initial Template:DiseaseDisorder_infobox. --Arcadian 20:42, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Arcadian, I apologise for appearing heavy-handed, but there were big problems with the box, and on every page I found a reason why the box would not be appropriate. You've spent a lot of time on this, and I don't want to create the impression that us grumpy doctors are monopolising on medical articles (which I do occasionally tend to do).

ICD codes should apply to all diseases, while DSM-IVR or OMIM will not. I do warmly support your move to link ICD codes, which is probably the best classification of diseases we have at the moment. JFW | T@lk 22:17, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cancer

I'm trying to bring cancer to featured article status. Could you all have a look and improve what is necessary? JFW | T@lk 09:23, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nice article! I contributed a bit more. alteripse 13:36, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hypoglycemia

I just "completed" (nothing is ever complete here) a major rewrite of a previously really crappy article and would be grateful for medical peer review of hypoglycemia. I am working on diabetic hypoglycemia and congenital hyperinsulinism. thanks alteripse 04:24, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Newbie

Being new to wiki and having an intested in medicine, I was delighted to see that this project a) existed and b) was reasonably active. I am a SHO in general medicine from Scotland and will be attempting to add my two-penneth to some articles, review stubs and generally help out. There seems to be a lot of activity from a select few. I hope that to be of use and also hope that you will help me in this new adventure. I'll be attempting to coerse some of my colleagues to get involved. If there is somewhere particular to start, mention it - if not I'll just take a look through the top priority page and see what the best use of my time will be. drjermy 14:25, 13 July 2005 (BST)

Find your niche and hack away, I say. It's more about having fun. Tips from this old hand: (1) Use good references, (2) cover the main things, (3) remain systematic. JFW | T@lk 15:47, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Preclinical medicine/medical science project

Hi all, I am PhatRita, a medical student. I have been following this project recently with interest. I think the same format and organistion could be applied with great effect to subjects on preclinical medicine such as human anatomy and physiology. The pages there are a mess. They face several problems which include:

• lack of agreement on whether to use lay or professional terms such as "superior" vs "above"
• lack of organisation on materials - redirections problems such as upper limb to arm (which is anatomically incorrect) and so on.
• lack of material full stop. There is so much to expand on. Many entries, especially anatomy, are one sentence and are stubs.
• lack of clinical relevance. Pages have no links to clinically important subjects, eg wrist and carpal tunnel syndrome
• some information is misleading, perhaps peer reviewing could help?
• many pages are both animal and human together. It makes pages sometimes unreadable and sometimes complex and misleading.

Just take a look at the human physiology page to see what I mean.

The project could provide:

• a central organisation
• highlight and attract more involvement
• improve the quality and linking to clinically relevant subjects
• peer reviewing could further help this
• separation of human medical science as a stand alone subject, which is important clinically.

What do you think? Please mail me with suggestions and interest thanks

PhatRita 12:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Although lacking time myself, I warmly support PhatRita in this quest. Basic science is still immensely poorly covered, and organisation is sorely lacking. The problem lies partially at the rather unglamorous character of basic anatomy, however important to any surgeon (or even for the sake of science). I was utterly shocked that I had to start mediastinum almost four years after Wikipedia was started. JFW | T@lk 00:23, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I have started the Preclinical medicine page. If you are interested in helping in any way, please have a look! PhatRita 00:08, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Sure, welcome, and have at it! When it's really bad, you can really make it better. I've been splitting my toil between clinical and a few biochemistry/physiology topics, as well as lounging about the ref desk. alteripse 00:34, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

First of all, welcome, PhatRita! I agree with the issues you have raised. Unfortunately, medical students and doctors tend to be extremely busy which is part of the reason why these articles are not in top shape, I suspect. Now that I'm an intern, I've become busier than I ever was, and I've had to severely cut back my time on Wikipedia (I haven't even listed myself as a member of this WikiProject, which I probably should do). Recently I've been focusing on new articles, picking medical ones from Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles, varying somewhat between basic science and clinical articles (my recent ones have been Chromoblastomycosis, Mastoiditis, Transaminase, Soleus muscle, and Acrocyanosis). I agree with JDW about the difficulty in writing anatomy articles—I put everything I could think of in Soleus muscle and it was a stretch at that. I've been collecting links to articles that need work but my list grows faster than I can attack it. I don't know how many people are active here, but perhaps we could consider some type of collaboration of the fortnight or something if there are enough. Or at least an internal peer review—I know I wouldn't mind others in the medical profession (or about to enter!) taking a look at the articles I write. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:34, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

In fact, the more I think about it, I like the idea of having a weekly or fortnightly collaboration. Would anyone else be interested? Of course there would be no obligation to contribute, but if we had several people poke their heads in it could really help. There are many medical articles that really should be a lot better than they are—like SIRS for instance. I wouldn't mind setting up and maintaing the collaboration page. Maybe we could alternate between clinical and pre-clinical topics. Laypeople would also be welcome, especially to ensure that the articles are understandable. Thoughts? — Knowledge Seeker দ 03:28, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Hi all again, thanks for your comments and suggestions. I think Knowledge Seeker's idea of a COTW is a good idea, just to get the process of improving the pages off the ground. Maybe sometime down the road we can think about expanding it into a more ambitious project if needs be. If possible we could program a new tag like COTW Medicine or something, to stick on nominees. In fact, why not stamp a seal like "improved with the COTW medicine" and maybe that will attract more support.

Whenever I write about a topic on anatomy or other basic sciences, I always forget an important point or maybe a certain object has a different name, eg sternal angle/Louis etc. Peer reviewing as part of the collaboration is very useful.

If you could make a page for this purpose, I'll be happy to help you maintain and improve. Are there any interested people for the first collaboration?

PhatRita 12:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I started it at Wikipedia:WikiProject Clinical medicine/MCOTF (or use shortcut WP:MCOTF). PhatRita and anyone who is interested, please head over to the talk page to help plan the details (or just to let us know you are interested in participating, even if infrequently). Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 23:31, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

I warmly greet these ideas and will surely contribute sooner rather than later. This fortnight collaboration should also be mentioned at the Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Medicine.

As there was talk about anatomy, I would specifically like to point out that it would be very appreciated if Latin redirects were created to the relevant topics. The same could possibly apply also to other topics. You know, it is often quite difficult for us non-native English medicine students to figure out English names. --Eleassar my talk 11:33, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Immunosuppressive drug

I think the articles immunosuppression and immunosuppressive drug should be merged into a new one called "immunosuppressive therapy" (currently a redirect) or perhaps even simply to "immunosuppression" (but I'm afraid it wouldn't be enough balanced then). Otherwise "immunosuppression" won't develop. Any thoughts? --Eleassar my talk 11:33, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Improvement Drive

The article H5N1 has been listed to be improved on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. You can add your vote there if you would like to support the article.--Fenice 06:42, 4 August 2005 (UTC)Fenice 06:29, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Redirect Maskun to Achromatopsia?

Achromatopsia currently redirects to Maskun, however, I was wondering if anyone would mind if I switched the redirect in the other direction. In Google, "Achromatopsia" gets about 20,700 hits and "Maskun" gets about 20,500 (but the vast majority appear to be Icelandic webpages or things unrelated to abnormal cone function). In PubMed, "Achromatopsia" gets 2,854 hits whereas "Maskun" gets only 1 (one). Please let me know if there are objections to switching the redirect. Edwardian 05:09, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Switching the redirect seems like a good idea; however, there's probably more to be done, as the two terms aren't synonymous. Achromatopsia isn't only an inborn error of the cone; it's a general term for absence of color vision, and there's more than one kind of that, including permanent acquired achromatopsia from small right parieto-occipital strokes (some people argue that this is always color agnosia or color anomia, which verges on the philosophical.); and paroxysmal achromatopsia, described in some (extremely rare) cases of occipital lobe epilepsy (Brazis, Localization in Clinical Neurology mentions this; I've seen a case of it myself.) -Ikkyu2 10:35, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Excellent info. I've always used "color agnosia" when differentiating between the two (i.e. cone disorder vs. brain/mental disorder), but you're absolutely right. Edwardian 07:10, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Traumatology

Hi, I might be writing this in the wrong place, completely new @ WP and haven't really got a hold of it yet. I'm a doctor specializing in Intensive Care/Disaster medicine with special interest in Trauma Surgery. Therefor, naturally, I'd like to contribute in these specific areas. Looking at the traumatology page, there is a chapter on some half New age, half alternative medicine thing, could you please take a look at this? I really don't know how to split an article but feel strongly that that part should not be there! Also, is this the place to discuss all issues/questions in the WP medical community? Lastly (sorry for grouping question), where can I read about the legal implications of what I might write here @ WP?--Johan M 08:13, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

You are in the right place. I deleted the traumatology New age nonsense (see article/discussion for reasons). I've put my thoughts on legal issues on your discussion page User talk:Johan Malmgren -David Ruben 12:54, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help and the information! After finishing working on my new apartment I will take a big bite at rewriting the traumatology page!--Johan M 18:19, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Are you expecting any practical examples? :-) JFW | T@lk 22:57, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Of course, considering where my thumbs are placed, I expect to put up some nice pictures of selfinflicted injuries, maybe a table of what kind of injuries could be associated to what tools!? :-) --Johan M 01:13, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Heh. JFW | T@lk 01:33, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Category

Category:Medicine has been flooded with irrelevant stuff, e.g. poultry viruses. Could anyone help me depopulating it? JFW | T@lk 01:19, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

How's that done? Simply remove the category template from the offending articles?—Encephalon | ^ζ  01:35:35, 2005-08-25 (UTC)

Yeah, or even better finding a more appropriate category. JFW | T@lk 01:45, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

"been flooded", have you identified someone actively adding Category:Medicine tags, or is this just sloppy entries over time? Will try and help out David Ruben 02:23, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Ah, get the gist - full of paracytology drugs... will edit away David Ruben 02:31, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Asthma is a featured article candidate

I'm trying to get Asthma promoted to FA status. Please visit the nomination and help improve the article, if you are interested. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:44, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

Cholesterol

Please beware, some character is editing Alzheimer/cholesterol/statin-related articles to reflect some fringe POV that cholesterol deficiency causes AD. Please revert on sight. 195.10.45.152 11:17, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Epilepsy

I have been taking a whack at epilepsy and some related pages lately. I welcome your feedback or edits! By the way, how come I'm the only American doctor here? -Ikkyu2 10:38, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Nice work. See list on one of the medical project pages: there have been a few American doctors over the last year but they come and go. alteripse 13:14, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

What makes you think you're the only American doctor? If you're counting residents, I'm one too. — Knowledge Seeker দ 16:18, August 30, 2005 (UTC) Residents certainly count! alteripse 16:22, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Finding those medically inclined

Just discovered Wikipedia and the medical part of it. Have been adding categories to userpages of those suspected of being doctors or students. Should I have forgotten any please leave a category on your/their page. Here are the ones already guilty of being a doctor or student.

Furthermore I found some pages (Hypermagnesemia, Hypomagnesemia, Paracentesis, Pleural effusion, Pulmonary edema, Thoracentesis) that need extra work. Presently I will redo these and hope they will be more up to standard.

On these pages (Acute respiratory distress syndrome,Chest tube, Pleural effusion, Pneumothorax, Pulmonary edema, Thoracentesis) I would like to insert pictures but I am not sure if the ones I have are allowed. I have some nice ones from the net or out of medical journals. Maybe some of you might help. --Nomen Nescio 18:16, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

Nescio, you're working unbelievably hard! Don't get overworked! You are likely to find many other medical pages that are substandard. We have the Medical Collaboration of the Week to iron out the most sorry examples, but the ones you've identified could all do with work.

Images are a sore point. I always carry a small digital camera, but the most interesting images are of patients or their imaging, both of which have ethical concerns. Images from US Government sources are widely available, though, and could fix this problem. Alternatively, you may ask your patients if they would object against inclusion of an image in Wikipedia. I did this with Hickman line, but in an ideal world a written permission should be obtained.

Images of medical technology should be easy to obtain (just snap a picture of a CVVH machine, a mechanical ventilator or a chest drain) but are less illustrative. JFW | T@lk 20:35, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Cerebellum

Nrets and I have spent a lot of time on the cerebellum article. It went to peer-review without much action. It's now up as a FAC. It would be great if some docs could head over and critique the work of a neuroscience grad student and offer their opinions. :) Semiconscious (talk · home) 03:25, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

Done. In fact, probably overdone. -Ikkyu2 06:40, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I found it quite difficult to read, even though I've just finished neuroanatomy a months ago. I think a bit more wikifying is needed. There are several terms which I think you should clarify, such as phylogenetic and lesions (instead of relying on redirecting) - eg lesion (damage to the nerve) etc.

The main concern I have is the "lesions of the cerebellum" section, which is a mass of writing. The only clearly visible disease, Parkinson's, is actually a disorder in the sunstantia nigra in the deep grey mass of the midbrain.

I also think that some terms should be bullet pointed - such as atresia, dysdochokinesia (spelling?), ataxia and so on. Clinical detection of cerebellar disorders should be included. I will try and fill most of these in. But it does look promising. PhatRita 15:42, 31 August 2005 (UTC)