Wikipedia Medical Articles Found To Have High Error Rate 200
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "A group of researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association found that 90% of the Wikipedia articles they sampled contained errors regarding common medical conditions. Unsurprisingly, they recommend your General Practitioner as a more reliable source, while noting, '47% to 70% of physicians and medical students admitting to using [Wikipedia] as a reference.' At issue in the study is the small sample size the researchers used: 10 medical conditions. There are also ongoing efforts to improve the quality of Wikipedia's articles. According to a Wikipedia spokesman, '... especially in relation to health and medicine.' The BBC has more approachable coverage."
A openly editable source has errors? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A openly editable source has errors? (Score:4, Interesting)
No controls. I am going to hazard a bet that if they did this to Web MD, Mayo Clinic or any one of the innumerable other lay accessible web sites, they would get similar results. Given that even the '10 most expensive medical conditions in the country' are not fully explained, categorized or treated having different interpretations or different recommendations is hardly surprising.
Even with professionally sourced and vetted resources you will find differences of opinion. Hell, even the 'reference' documents on a particular condition have differing conclusions depending on whose writing them and who won the argument in the committee.
To a first approximation, everything you know is wrong. Take it from there.
physicians use wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a physician, and I admit that I use it on an irregular basis. But let's keep this in context. I don't look up how to diagnose or treat conditions. I do use it to look up obscure things, as well as review anatomy. Information that either is just for personal knowledge that is not critical to management (example: what is the name of the nerve that innervates the serratus anterior?), or information that is hard to get wrong (example: what are the muscles of the knee called? I once had to look up VMO because I could not remember what the "O" stood for). Even then, if it makes even a small difference, I always look it up further in a medical resource. So I am one of the 47-70% of physicians who look up facts in wikipedia. I don't think that is a bad thing.
Re: Let's get this out of the way... (Score:5, Interesting)
The situation seems analogous to that of a journalist and/or photographer reporting on a disaster in which people are hurt or killed. It is often said that they would help more if they dropped their notebooks and cameras and pitched in to help rescuers. But then no one would be doing the presumably useful job of recording events.
The researchers in this case were trying to establish the accuracy of Wikipedia articles. Simultaneously editing would be both a distraction and a conflict of interest - much like moderating and contributing to the same Slashdot thread.
Re: Let's get this out of the way... (Score:3, Interesting)
They're full medical-type doctors. They had some ancient history related to bone and joint manipulation, but that's now like a barber's pole having the red swirl because they used to do bloodletting.
They do everything including up through cardiology and cardio-thoracic surgery with the exact same training and science-based medicine. I've been to DOs a lot more than MDs.
There should be no daylight between an MD and a DO on treatment.
I am a physician... (Score:5, Interesting)