Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine

Edit with VisualEditor

Welcome to the WikiProject Medicine talk page. If you have comments or believe something can be improved, feel free to post. Also feel free to introduce yourself if you plan on becoming an active editor!

We do not provide medical advice; please see a health professional.

• Unsure about something? Make sure to look at our style and source guidelines.
• Please don't shout, remain civil, be respectful to all, and assume good faith.
• Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
• Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~).
• Threads older than 30 days are automatically archived.
• Please see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Newsletter/Mailing_list

List of archives

Merged Archive WikiProject Preclinical medicine: 1 Merged Archive WikiProject Clinical medicine: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 WikiProject Medicine Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172

Marburg outbreak

have started Rwanda Marburg disease outbreak , it should be noted this is the first time this occurs in Rwanda (and in recent years in other countries) please feel free to add/delete, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:32, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Added stuff on the socioeconomic/legal reasons that we don't have a vaccine in production yet. See also economics of vaccines.

I should like to see an analysis of whether the existence of legal monopolies in the biomedical field is a net benefit to taxpayers, because it clearly has enormous negative externalities. This is doubly important because, outside the chemical and pharma sector, patents seem not to be a net benefit even to their owners (in the US, as of 2008; from a Refdesk query). So the onus is rather on patents to show that they should exist. HLHJ (talk) 02:56, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I will also add some material, thanks for starting it Noxoug1 (talk) 08:06, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

References

Also started Marburg vaccine, just by copy-pasting from existing articles, because we have Ebola vaccine and did before one was in production, and because organizationally, a central place for that information would be good. HLHJ (talk) 04:00, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Request for Help: Expanding Psychological and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Section in NF1 Article

Hello everyone,

I am currently working on improving the Psychological and Neurodevelopmental Disorders section of the Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) article. Specifically, I need assistance with finding reliable resources and expanding the content related to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in NF1.

Both ASD and ADHD are highly prevalent in individuals with NF1, and they often exhibit distinct characteristics compared to idiopathic forms. I believe that enhancing this section will be especially useful for parents of affected children, as it could provide valuable insights into these unique challenges.

If anyone has access to relevant studies or publications, or if you have experience with this subject, I would greatly appreciate your guidance in improving this section.

I have found articles about ADHD in NF1, such as the one by Lion-François et al. (2020), which discusses the differences between ADHD and the syndromic ADHD in NF1. Honestly, I feel like this topic is a bit beyond my understanding, and I don't want to make mistakes when editing the article. If anyone has a good grasp of this issue, I would greatly appreciate your collaboration.

Thank you in advance for your support! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fechu93 (talk • contribs) 21:29, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

maybe this...Walsh, Karin S.; Vélez, Jorge I.; Kardel, Peter G.; Imas, Daniel M.; Muenke, Maximilian; Packer, Roger J.; Castellanos, Francisco X.; Acosta, Maria T. (February 2013). "Symptomatology of autism spectrum disorder in a population with neurofibromatosis type 1". Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology. 55 (2): 131–138. doi:10.1111/dmcn.12038. ISSN 1469-8749. Retrieved 3 November 2024.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:10, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

DOIs vs PMIDs

Given the choice we should be preferring the former I think as it is an International Standard not a proprietary one. I suppose there may be a risk that PMIDs stop working if the US govt has its resourcing pulled? Bon courage (talk) 06:36, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

But they aren't equivalent. PMID 37111210 takes me to the PubMed website with its own copy of the abstract and author details and other links and information. doi:10.3390/nu15081991 takes me to the publisher website's copy of the article. Surely there's a similar risk that a publisher might go under or suffer a Crowdstrike-like systems failure. And if PubMed stops being funded, who's to say International DOI Foundation might have some big falling out or loss of funding too, meaning all our doi.org links stop working. I don't know why you are asking us to prefer one or the other. Let's have both. -- Colin°^Talk 09:12, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Both sounds a safe option. I suppose I'm feeling jittery after seeing what problems the disappearance of the Internet Archive caused, which it was easy to assume was a permanent part of the Web, and because it's apparent the PUBMED infrastructure is subject to one government's ideals, which might change in odd ways.[1] Bon courage (talk) 11:18, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I suspect if PubMed lost funding from US Gov then it would be important enough to the international community to keep alive elsewhere. We'd have to rewrite the URLs from pubmed.ncbi.nlm.gov to pubmed.org or something, but that's a problem for the templates. -- Colin°^Talk 16:14, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

At least part of PubMed is already mirrored by Europe PubMed Central. If PubMed lost funding from the U.S. government, then we are in a real world of [hurt]. Boghog (talk) 16:49, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That sounds like a reason to prefer DOI to PMID. DOI represents the publisher's intention. Bondegezou (talk) 17:07, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Both are useful for different reasons. There is no reason to prefer one over the other. Boghog (talk) 17:11, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

PubMed provides a lot of useful information that is often lacking in the publisher sites, such as related citations, cited by, indexing (MeSH, gene ID, etc.). Boghog (talk) 17:20, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Not to mention links from PubMed to PubMedCentral which contains full text that is sometimes missing from the publisher site. Boghog (talk) 17:26, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

What makes PubMedCentral so valuable is the NIH Public Access Policy. In short, any publication resulting from research funded by the NIH must be freely available to the public through PubMedCentral. Boghog (talk) 17:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

In the event of an announcement that PubMed was closing (it surely wouldn't happen by surprise overnight) then one of our bot wizards could look up all the PMID links to extract the DOI on the PubMed page, and add any missing DOI parameters/link to our references. Maybe there's a bot doing that already? If I use the Cite Journal editing tool, and supply a PMID, it can fill in the citation fields and the DOI. But if I supply a DOI then it can't lookup the PMID. So arguably the PMID is more useful at the moment, as it unlocks information about the other IDs that a DOI can't. I remain puzzled why we are being asked to prefer one. -- Colin°^Talk 08:37, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, User:Citation bot already does this. If at least one of |pmid=, |pmc=, or |doi= is specified, it can usually fill in the missing ones if they exist. Boghog (talk) 09:49, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Delirium caused by Anticholinergic medications

Hello. An experienced Doctor recommended I ask for help with the Delirium article here, he says he isnt available and very busy.

Delirium, as most of you know, is a disorder / syndrome which occurs mostly in old / elderly people above age 70 or so. However, there is another type of Delirium caused by anticholinergic medications, and the Delirium article confuses readers by talking about mostly the elderly part of age over 70 people who have Delirium, not the other type caused by anticholinergic medications.

I came here to ask for help with improving the Delirium article for that. Are there any people who can possibly help me improve Delirium article? Doctors I prefer of course, but anyone with medical knowledge generally. Noam Atadgy (talk) 06:00, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I forgot to say. I've improved Delirium article myself by alot! But theres some work needs to be done. Noam Atadgy (talk) 06:01, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I suppose there are many substances which can cause acute delirium.[2] These should be mentioned in context without giving undue weight among the many causes overall.[3] Bon courage (talk) 07:33, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the redirect Substance-induced delirium (also ICU delirium) should be turned into a separate article. G.J.ThomThom, the latter might be a good option for your students. Category:Redirects with possibilities might be an interesting place to find likely missing articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:50, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Thats an amazing idea. I had no clue this redirect even exists. If a doctor can help write the basic info and start that new article it'd help alot. Although the current Delirium article talks about delirium caused by medication as well, it doesnt go into full details about it. Readers who read Delirium article, read about the one in old / elderly 70+ patients in hospitals. We need to separate the 2 types of Delirium.

Another thing is. In the past Delirium was also called "Acute confusional state"? What does that mean? Noam Atadgy (talk) 02:06, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

@Noam Atadgy, if we wait for one of the physicians to do this, it could be years. Why don't you try putting together a very short article in User:Noam Atadgy/sandbox, just to get us started? You can copy relevant text and sources out of the main article. You can make a list of substances from this book. This book has two long paragraphs specifically about anticholinergic delirium, which you could probably summarize in two or three simpler sentences. I think you could be successful in creating this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Fake AI-generated article?

I'm concerned about the content of canfosfamide. I noticed that the references for this article have broken DOIs. Upon investigation, I found that the titles of the references cannot be found by a Google search. This type of real-looking but fake references is characteristic of what is written by ChatGTP and other AI text generators. I suspect that this article was largely written by AI. Other medical articles started by Ashleythesciencenerd may have the same problem (example). 108.2.108.191 (talk) 16:13, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Yep, this article contains AI-generated fake references. While the topic is legitimate, the entire article needs to be rewritten. It appears that ChatGPT was used to create this content, which is cannot be used for reliable sourcing. Perplexity is generally a much more reliable option for generating accurate references. Regardless, if an AI tool is used to create content, it must be carefully checked by editors before posting. Boghog (talk) 18:33, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Rewritten sported by real citations. Boghog (talk) 21:24, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Bots tagging "outdated" Cochrane reviews

Hello,

This bot-tagging of Cochrane reviews when they are updated with newer ones is a helpful feature to keep wp up to date. However I have a situation where both the older review and the updated one are cited. Therefore, the bot's actions are unhelpful. I reverted one such bot edit already, but now it happened again.

Here is the section in question: Ventral_rectopexy#Controversy_regarding_use_of_mesh

This section of the article is a "background" or "history" of the development of the procedure. I thought the earlier Cochrane review was an important landmark publication to include in this section. The latest Cochrane review is cited in the next sentence. Thoughts? Thank you Moribundum (talk) 07:31, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Cochrane update tells you how to stop the bot repeating the tag. I think maybe the bot's edit comment should point this out. Thincat (talk) 12:06, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for answer. Moribundum (talk) 05:45, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

See also #How to use withdrawn Cochrane reviews, Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2024-06-08/Special_report, and this comment. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:58, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for flagging. Great to see these articles being improved. I do the following in these instances (shared on the bot project page) "If we wish to use the old review in an article (e.g.: in the historical context), the reference can be marked with <!-- No update needed: PMID -->, where PMID is the Pubmed ID for the reference, and the bot will ignore it." JenOttawa (talk) 17:47, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Sorry to be so late, I see that this was figured out. This edit looks good to me Moribundum! [[4]] If it get's re-flagged please let me know and I can get some help looking for another solution.JenOttawa (talk) 17:51, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Recent edits by AdeptLearner123

AdeptLearner123 recently cut down Crohn's disease from 257 references to only 45. I didn't go through all 243 of their recent edits to that page, but it seems unlikely this is an improvement. Thoughts? They cut down Tumor necrosis factor as well. An IP also left a comment on the Crohn's disease talk page about this issue. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 00:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

The majority of those references were from unreviewed webpages, or outdated papers. I have focused the references around a smaller number of articles from highly reputed journals, such as Nature and Mayo Clinic. AdeptLearner123 (talk) 00:57, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I did not cut down the tumor necrosis factor article; the prose increased from 250 to 300 kB. My changes brought the TNF article to GA status. AdeptLearner123 (talk) 01:08, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was just looking at the number of references (83 to 40). ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 01:15, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Although I haven’t looked through the Crohn’s disease article it’s not uncommon to remove sources for various reasons. For example according to WP:MEDDATE articles over 5 years old should be replaced with newer sources. So perhaps maybe a couple older refs were replaced in favour of newer more comprehensive sources? It’s also not uncommon to have one comprehensive article replace several smaller less comprehensive sources. Pretty much what I’m trying to say is although it may look odd, removing sources isn’t always a bad thing especially with medical articles. IntentionallyDense (talk) 01:20, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

@IntentionallyDense if there aren`t any newer sources, is it ok to keep the existing ones? what would be recommended? Noxoug1 (talk) 12:06, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

If there is no newer sources then use the most recent, reliable and comprehensive source you can find. IntentionallyDense (talk) 15:07, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with IntentionallyDense: Use the best sources you can, and remember that MEDDATE is trying to guide you to the best sources, rather than providing a hard and fast cut off date. Usually, in a heavily researched area (think Hypercholesterolemia), you can write a great article using only review articles from the top-ranked journals and the best med school textbooks, every source published in the last five years, and still have plenty of high-quality sources left over. In a less popular area, you may need to stretch that: maybe the sources need to be from mid-ranked journals. Maybe you need a couple of primary sources. Maybe you need sources that are 10 years old.

Our advice is to aim for the ideal, but to do what's practical. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:41, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

When I updated prostate cancer and brought it to featured article status, the number of references dropped from 355 to 128. Some of that was trimming material, but much of that loss was updating the sourcing to more recent, higher-quality references. When an article grows bit-by-bit you often get 100 facts with 100 references. When sections or whole articles are updated at once you might get 100 facts with 20 references. Neither is inherently better. I'd suggest picking a section of Crohn's disease (or any other article you're concerned about) and comparing the text/sources before and after to see if you feel it's improving or not. Hopefully you'll find it is (I haven't looked at it myself). If you find particular concerns, we'll have more to discuss here. Ajpolino (talk) 20:12, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

WP:MED articles with no references

Hi all, WikiProject Unreferenced articles is holding a backlog drive this month to further reduce the number of articles tagged as completely lacking sources. This number has fallen precipitously over the last several years: from 153180 (Nov 2021) to 135232 (Nov 2022) to 1169778 (Nov 2023) to 78548 today. Perhaps we can help them out by taking a look at the 138 articles currently tagged with our project's tag and {{unreferenced}}. A single reference to backup material in the article is sufficient to remove the tag. That list is at my sandbox, feel free to edit/comment that list directly or post here if you prefer. Ajpolino (talk) 21:40, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I will put some time aside this month to look at these articles. Thanks for flagging @Ajpolino Noxoug1 (talk) 08:11, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you... I will try and help too. Whispyhistory (talk) 14:52, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

If I make a list of promising new-ish editors who have recently edited medicine-related articles, is someone willing to invite them to help out? This seems like a good project for someone who would like to help but aren't sure where to start. Also, can we send out a new Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Newsletter? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Of course, I'm happy to help. Also I can put together a new newsletter this week. If anyone has thoughts/suggestions for newsletter topics or alternative formats that would make the newsletter more useful, please share them at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Newsletter. Ajpolino (talk) 21:25, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Sent. If you don't subscribe to the newsletter, you can change that by adding your name to the mailing list. Apologies if the height of the side-by-side boxes looks janky at your screen width (you'll be comforted to know it looks great with my settings). If someone knows how to come up with a more universal solution, please do let me know. Ajpolino (talk) 22:32, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Article on subjective refraction

Hello - as there does not seem to be an optometry WikiProject I am asking here instead in the hopes that someone has the necessary expertise. The article Subjective refraction, despite being (as far as I know) a fairly important topic in optometry, is in a rather unacceptable state. The vast majority of the article is written as a how-to guide and not a well-formatted one at that. Some content is probably salvageable, but everything else needs to be completely rewritten, so I think this will require some subject matter expertise. There seems to be a list of medical textbooks in the references. Thanks.  — RTao (talk • contribs) 01:13, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Contrary to popular belief you don’t need any medical expertise to edit medical articles on Wikipedia. I understand you may not be comfortable editing such a technical area but I encourage you to try! IntentionallyDense (talk) 01:34, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@IntentionallyDense Fair point. I have edited in areas I know little about before, and I should probably do some of the basic cleanup there if I have time. Nevertheless, I hope someone with topic knowledge will contribute to making the eventual article more comprehensive/balanced.  — RTao (talk • contribs) 02:56, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

California opioid crisis

It would be helpful to have some more views on a proposal to merge Fentanyl crisis in San Francisco into California opioid crisis, the case being short text, context, and overlap. The discussion is at Talk:California opioid crisis#Fentanyl crisis in San Francisco. Klbrain (talk) 14:54, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

thank you for posting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:48, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Could you please see if these changes violate MEDRS?

I initially posted this at WP:Helpdesk#Could someone who knows WP:MEDRS, please look at these changes?, so I wont repeat it here. I was recommended here, though if you'd prefer you can answer there. These were changes by a newish account that I am reluctant to revert myself, not my changes. – user usually at 2804:F14::/32, currently 143.208.239.58 (talk) 20:37, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Just to make it easier, the source they used is https://www.acespsychiatry.com/2024/10/12/what-to-say-to-kids/. – 143.208.239.58 (talk) 01:34, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for sharing! while the content is sourced (has references) it does not appear to be peer reviewed. In addition, on closer inspection, this is posted on a clinic website. The content itself may be helpful for improving the article. You could suggest that the person look at the reference list that the author generated for high quality secondary sources and improve the article using those if the person feels that the content is appropriate and helpful for improving the article.JenOttawa (talk) 02:34, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I just went to your post at the help deck. Good to see this was reverted as pretty weak source! JenOttawa (talk) 02:37, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 November 11 § Ro (antigen)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 November 11 § Ro (antigen). Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 10:01, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:50, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Updating Stroke

Hello, and hope you're well. Last month, the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association published "2024 Guideline for the Primary Prevention of Stroke". The abstract says the 2024 guideline replaces replaces the 2014 "Guidelines for the Primary Prevention of Stroke." Is it just me, or does Stroke (or any other article, for that matter) not cite the 2014 guidelines at all? Thanks! Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 08:19, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing. Do you have a specific edit suggestion? I can take a look at the guideline but if you have an idea of places in the stroke article that needs to be updated with the new recommendations that would be great! JenOttawa (talk) 02:38, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Not really. My suggestion would've been, "Maybe I could at least replace citations of the old guideline with the current 2024 one," but I think the Stroke article does not cite the old guideline at all! I otherwise have not had a chance to closely compare the article to the current guideline; I actually heard about the update from the Associated Press, but I don't know if the AP summary is accurate. I know AP itself is accurate and that scientific reporting in even reputable newspapers for laypeople like me can be all over the place. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 14:42, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Human penis concerns

Hi, I'd like someone way more knowledgeable about biology to take a look at Human penis#Female phenotypic quality. I raised some concerns on the talk page yesterday, but no one has commented yet. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 08:38, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

@Clovermoss Thank you for bringing this to our attention! IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 14:46, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

It looks like we need to strip ancient and primary sources out of that article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

About med school

It looks like we need a few med students at d:Wikidata talk:WikiProject Medicine#Modelling internship, residency, fellowship of physicians to talk about how education and training of physicians is organized in each country (e.g., is residency "employment"?). Please join the discussion over there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Consciousness

Consciousness has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 16:15, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

WHtR below 0.4, values for anorexia, emaciated?

At Waist-to-height_ratio#Recommended_boundary_values there are clear boundary values 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6 and above.

Any boundaries known below WHtR 0.4? E.g. for

• Anorexia_nervosa
• Emaciation
• what is the lean counterpart of Obesity-associated_morbidity?

Uwappa (talk) 09:08, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@Uwappa I’m not fully sure of your question here but I’ll try my best to answer.

Anorexia is diagnosed based partially off BMI not waist to height ratio although i’m sure you could find some study that gives info on the average WHtR.

Malnutrition, specifically Malnutrition#Effects has information on the health effects of malnutrition. Anorexia nervosa#Prognosis goes over the complications of anorexia as well. IntentionallyDense ^(Contribs) 19:46, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Doing a little quick math, for an average-height woman, it's called Size zero. The average US woman is 5'4", and 0.4 ratio means a waist size below 25.5", which is a size 0 dress on the Lands' End website (it will be a size 2 or 4 for some other brands). It's not automatically a medical problem.

I don't think there is a single lean counterpart, because causes become more important. Anorexia nervosa, BTW, can appear in any size body. It's about what happens in your head, not about the current shape of your body. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Please have a look at: Waist-to-height_ratio#Recommended_boundary_values and .

NICE defines 0.4 as the lower bound of healthy.

Anything below 0.4 is unspecified, grey in the chart.

Any source that defines 'yellow' and 'red' boundaries below 0.4?

Is grey really grey? Unspecified? Really? Uwappa (talk) 21:09, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

It might be. The thing is, especially for women, two individuals could have the same overall body composition, but because one has an hourglass figure and the other has a straight/rectangular figure, they could fall on different sides of the same line. That doesn't mean that the one with the narrower waist is more or less healthy. The cutoff lines for these things are always somewhat arbitrary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I understand all of that, especially at the high end of the scale. That is not my question.

The question is: Any boundary values known below 0.4, just like above 0.5? Uwappa (talk) 21:52, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Martha Hughes Cannon

Martha Hughes Cannon has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 01:23, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

PCORI (Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute) as MEDRS?

Is there a consensus that using PCORI is an acceptable WP:MEDRS source? There is a six-year old discussion about using PCORI that was pointed out to me. -Whywhenwhohow (talk) 00:48, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I place PCORI in the same category as CDC or NIH. But I have seen edit wars centered on whether or not an NIH medical dictionary was WP:MEDRS, and the resolution was not(!), so I suppose these sources in whole or in part may not be WP:MEDRS. But if none of their work product is, one starts to get very close to the conclusion that nothing is WP:MEDRS. Jaredroach (talk) 11:08, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

One of the challenges with "MEDRS" is that there is the ideal (e.g., a peer-reviewed review article published in a highly reputable journal within the last five years) and then there is the good-enough (you don't need an "ideal" source to say that the common cold is caused by a virus). Even if PCORI isn't "ideal", it might be "good enough", depending on what's being said. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Arthur E. Hertzler

I've started an article on Arthur E. Hertzler. Having started to dig into the numerous references about him, there's much more there than I currently have the time to write about, particularly in material found at this page. There is also other material that I can see referenced, but can't read because of journal paywalls, such as this article, and there's material about him in The Kansas Doctor: A Century of Pioneering by Thomas Neville Bonner, which I also don't have access to.

Hertzler by all accounts seems to have lived a fascinating life, and was clearly both brilliant and quite a character. Would anyone here be interested in expanding this article? — The Anome (talk) 07:28, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

The JAMA article is available via Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library. After you're logged in, this direct link will probably work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Autism on Wikipedia

Hi, a friend at Wikimedia UK suggested it could be wise to post about this here: I have a piece just out in Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, on 'How Wikipedia Systematically Misleads People About Autism'. It describes some of my experiences editing relevant pages here, and argues that Wikipedia's autism coverage is badly out of date. I don't use the term in the article, but effectively Wikipedia's guidelines tend to enshrine a strong status quo bias. One consequence of this is that a biomedical framing of autism is largely taken for granted, despite the attitudes and insights of contemporary autism specialists, not to mention autistic communities.

I understand that similar biases have affected Wikipedia's coverage of marginalised groups across the board, but it seems that to date, there has been far more coordinated and institutional investment in correcting systematic gender bias, LGBT exclusion and racial prejudice.

I bring this up here because my impression is that Wikipedia's main Autism entry has inherited a framing and structure that is ubiquitous in our coverage of diseases and disorders, but which is questionably relevant and arguably unhelpful when it comes to something like autism - with pathophysiology, management, prognosis, epidemiology and so on.

Its physiology is much-studied, but still poorly understood, and many would question the appropriateness of the 'patho-' prefix; 'management' is not really an appropriate way of thinking about a difference that affects someone's entire way of being; 'prognosis' can be summed up in the single word 'lifelong'; 'epidemiology' …I mean, there are some reasonably interesting things to be said about the statistics (variations in which inevitably reflect the limitations of the data more than objective real-world differences) but there are so many other things that are more important.

So I guess I'm posting here partly to just give people a heads-up about the article, and partly to enquire about how attached people are to this general structure… and why?

I note that gender dysphoria is a separate article from transgender, allowing one to focus on the formal, medicalised interpretation of trans experience, while the other is more about being trans. Stuff that non-clinicians are actually likely to want to know, or benefit from knowing. Not sure that's an ideal solution, but it's an interesting one that's been discussed a couple of times in Talk:Autism as well; there are various helpful parallels that are worth considering, I think. Oolong (talk) 18:12, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Sourcing milestone

Hello, all:

We've been working this month on getting at least one source into unreferenced medicine-related articles. There are now less than 100 unsourced articles on the list! A few years ago, that list was over 400 articles. Less than a year ago, it was over 200 articles. We have made really good progress this year. Please take a minute and see if you can add a source to at least one article.

We are doing this now to support the Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/Backlog drives/November 2024 and also because we think that sources are particularly important for anything medicine-related on Wikipedia. The backlog drive has officially resulted in about 7,000 of Wikipedia's unsourced articles getting a new source (i.e., with #NOV24 in the edit summary), plus all the pages that got new references but which weren't tagged.

Please join in and do your bit. We'd really appreciate it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 27 November 2024 (UTC)