School talk:Medicine/Archives/2006-2013

Behavioral Medicine & Psychiatry
The first two years of medical school usually contain a basic health psychology (or behavioral medicine) course that addresses how behavior and health are connected and a survey course of clinical psychiatry. These are not listed except as "psychiatry" toward the end of the clinical part of the curriculm. That may be fine; it just differs from the way most curricula are arrayed. --Charlescengel 00:50, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Medicine w/o Nursing?
Interesting that Nursing does not appear anywhere within School of Medicine. Especially considering "treatment" is a main component of any medical schooling. FYI - while the percentages vary throughout the world, nurses treat between 10 and 100 times as many people as do physicians. I realize that this is a user developed and supported site and therefore I should be and am willing to contribute time and information but wondered if anyone else thinks that the exclusion of nursing is somewhat ignorant at best and elitest at worst. And NO, I am not a nurse nor in the nursing profession. Wkm4wikiversity 22:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)wkm4wikiversity 03 Jan 2007Wkm4wikiversity 22:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
 * You still misunderstand the nature of a Wiki resource. There will be pages, schools, universities, coffee klatches, or whatever dedicated to nursing as soon as some interested participants show up and create them.  68.238.135.182 00:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Generally, medicine is the field related to the "practice of medicine," which is the job of a physician. For nursing, there are schools dedicated to nursing called such-and-such "School of Nursing." If you go to a hospital and ask for anyone in "medical," you will almost asuredly be dirrected to a physician. Similarly, if you ask for someone in "nursing," you will be dirrected to a nurse. They are completely different professions, but share the common goal of treating illness. I see where the question lies, but ask any nurse or physician and they will explain it similarly as I have. I began my career as a nurse and am now in the process of obtaining my M.D., so I know both sides of the story. Hope this clears things up. For those interested in nursing, there would be (or there should be) a Wikiversity "School of Nursing." --Wikisystole 22:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
 * At the same time, there's nothing preventing interested users from putting Nursing content here in Medicine. The Jade Knight 10:19, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Nothing at all, but it might be better placed in the School of Nursing. Donek (talk) - Go raibh mile maith agaibh 11:18, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Idea
Hi,

I wanted to ask your opinion on this idea for School:Medicine. Would it be wise, in your opinion, to start with a section on Clinical Cases? It could be a place for people to test their knowledge and go looking for answers, e.g. on Wikipedia. Of course, it would be nicer to have more interactive features, like the ones you get when taking interactive courses for CME credit, but I'm not a programmer.

--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 01:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Cell differentiation picture
The factual accuracy of the Image:Cell differentiation.gif on the School:Medicine page is disputed. This is a request to whoever added it to this page to remove it or upload the corrected version. (See the description at the original site here)Bduttabaruah 16:12, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Organization
I understand this is likely an initial framework for organization, but I find myself wanting initially to edit the divisions. For example - Internal medicine and Family Medicine are together in a single category, but this does not include pediatrics. Perhaps once there is more added material then we can shuffle this a bit to fit the volume of data available. Williamwells 06:12, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I think 'clinical Neurosciences' category should be abolished. instead there should be a 'division of mental Health' with subcategory of psychology and psychiatry. It may be more relevant to put neurology under 'general and internal medicine' and neurosurgery under 'surgery and anesthesiology'. --Riad 18:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I drafted the organisation, but now think it's rubbish: we shouldn't try to put specialities together to much: pediatrics, psychiatry, psychology, neurosurgery etc. should all have their own division, as far as I'm concerned.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Steven, I agree to dividing as much as possible, and having as many "headers" as possible. There is no problem, as most links will be shared among headers, and you will get a better compartmentation. HolyZarkon 23:08, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Medicine Icon
Currently the icon for the medicine section is an animation of a human brain. I think this is a very poor choice. For one, it should not be animated. The rest of the icons are not animated, and the icon should be at least somewhat similar to the other icons, and should also lend itself more to being printed. Plus the animation is very choppy (perhaps just my computer) and is not aesthetically pleasing. Secondly, it a picture of a brain, and a brain is already being used in the icon for psychology (which makes sense). Medice is a hugely broad field, I'm sure there are many many more approprate icons that could be found. For example, perhaps an x-ray of a human skeleton. [for clarity, the icon I am reffering to is found on http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Browse. I cross posted this comment on that page's discussion page.]

142.68.160.138 20:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

RE: ICON  I agree... I didn't see the example... looks like the link is no longer valid. But a little more brainstorming should be done. I suppose that the icon can be changed down the road. But it is important to convey the right message with the icon-- the brian is perhaps too specific and doesn't signify medicine. ( Ironic that it's my brain that's thinking about this right now, and voting to remove itself from this potentially important, public position... Sorry brain, you loose. ) -Christopher Loren Thompson

medical "school"
I strongly question a medical "school" without practical application, I am a medical student and I think this site could be a nice source of free information for medical students, but I disagree with the term "school" since some guys might think that by reading articles from this site that they are able to go ahead and prescribe medicines to people ! which I think is a crime. 84.36.3.52 23:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a disclaimer should be put at the top explaining this is not a holiday inn and therefore after reading here no one should committ crimes by using the information gained on other people.

A Wikiversity school is a content development project. The Wikiversity School of Medicine is a collaborative effort to plan, organize and develop learning resources related to medicine. --JWSchmidt 00:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, someone who prescribes controlled substances based solely on information learned through the Wiki project would most certainly be violating state and federal law in the USA (as you probably know as a fellow med student). I agree that for the layperson, there should be some sort of disclaimer due to the sensitive nature of this particular topic, particularly the handling and prescribing of controlled substances. The same would apply to the Pharmacy Wiki as well. --Wikisystole 22:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

RE:SCHOOL Realistically though, you need a license from the state to practice medicine, and in this means attending a traditional, bricks and mortar school. This site isn't changing that fact. -Christopher Loren Thompson

Biochemistry?
It seems the Topic:Biochemistry wiki indicates the School to link into there, but it isn't in the front page. Anyone? HolyZarkon 23:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I added a link to Topic:Biochemistry from the School:Medicine section. What could be done is create a template for the "basic sciences" departments and then use that template both at School:Medicine and at Topic:Basic sciences. Alternatively, we could remove the list of basic sciences departments from the School:Medicine page and just leave the link to Topic:Basic sciences. --JWSchmidt 23:42, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

That's great as long as applied to non-basic, aka clinical sciences too. We are used to the basic/clinical dichotomy and the different treatment still bothers us. It is still possible to think that the entire "menu" of disciplines would move to a template or two (or three ...) to apparently little avail.

Ok, now that raises a question which is NOT too important but is still related to how links are made. Biochemistry for med has a given focus; biochemistry as biochemistry by itself (as in biochemical engineering, for instance) has another one. It is unclear to me if this biochem is the medical version (hence no photosynthesis and no particularities from animals other than human, for instance) or the generic, engineering version, in which case pathological situations have little interest; or still, if we're going to have it all in one place, which is a third and also valid option, and I'm supposing this last one. It is not unusual for departments to carry different courses in their domain. HolyZarkon 19:29, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Good points. I suggest that Topic:Biochemistry be used as THE content development and planning page for all biochemistry content. We need to get clever about how to name learning resources for biochemistry according to the intended audience. We can use descriptive page names such as Biochemistry (medical) or Biochemistry (biochem majors), etc. or First year medical school biochemistry, etc. --JWSchmidt 00:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Perfect, agree, and I think I got it: So, in Topic:Biochemistry making links to subtopics like Medical Biochemistry, Medical Veterinary Biochemistry, etc. I must tell you I haven't the foggiest idea of what a major is; I can tell what 1st year medical biochem is and what 2nd year medical biochem is (around here, that is). The structure of resources in the biochem talk page now would be just a little beyond first year. Second year would be a connection to some particular aspects of physiology, physiopathology and pharmacology under the biochemical viewpoint.


 * BTW, thanks for the vitalism topic. Quite a great discussion, as it connects to so many things.

Ethics, History and Statistics
In my POV I think that the three subjects Medical and Experimental Ethics, History of Medicine and Statistics [for Medicine] are missing in the Basics. HolyZarkon 19:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion
(copied from Learning goals)

I would like a wikimedical school,for med students, that would give you access to medical textbooks such as gray's anatomy, practice tests,etc. And also stuff you need to know to practice medicine, like the fact that the body's four fluids are : blood, pleghm, bile and water. The five Fs of someone at risk for gallbladder disease are Fat, Female, Fortyish, Fertile, Flatulent. Things like that.-anonymous May 15, 2007

I have a suggestion. How about incorporating material to provide a solid foundation for premed or earlier students-to sort of give the doctors of the future (well the ones who look at wikiversity anyways!) a little boost? Just material to introduce them to some basic concepts and ideas, as well as specific information that they'll need to know shortly. Or is this just a dumb idea? What do you think? Thornow 04:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It is a good idea. I wonder if it could be integrated with learning resources related to medicine that would be useful to an even wider audience? --JWSchmidt 04:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Since I am a General Medical Practitioner here in Chennai,India,coming across quite a lot of PreDiabetics,Diagnosed Diabetics,Undiagnosed Diabetics,Diabetic Patients with complications of Nephro,Neuro,Cardio-Vascular & Peripheral Vascular disturbances,I am into learning more and more of Diabetes,Diabetic Patient Education and ways of Prevention by Lifestyle Modification through Wikipedia & Wikiversity,though the treatment options are relatively Limited due to Availability of the Latest Drugs & ofcourse due to Patient Compliance(economic). Hence I do think it'll be very useful for Medical Practitioners,who are into CME to update themselves along with the latest development(s)& make their knowledge much more thorough after going through the Curricular Sections of the related aspects,by the Addition of a "Multiple-Choice Questionnaire" on both Diabetes Mellitus & Insipidus.Thank You very much.-Dr.Laliam Mohan,July,28,2010.

Pre-Medicine?
Another perhaps weird idea. It was hinted at in another suggestion, but I would like to have a field/department/degree of Pre-Medical Studies. A friend and myself are willing to fill out the entire curriculum if we have a place to put what we know. We are studying Pre-Medicine currently and would like a place to post what we know, not only as reference for others, but it provides us a very good method to study (by teaching others). I do not know if this should be a degree or a department, considering that I want to enlist knowledge from many spectrums (physics, biology, chemistry, to name a few) just like a premed student would be required to know. Any ideas on how to do this? Thanks! Schulb72 12:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I will be happy to help. I suggest starting a page called something like Topic:Premedical Studies. On that page you could list all of the subjects that should be available for premedical students and provide links to relevant pages such as Topic:Cell Biology. Content development projects such as Topic:Cell Biology and Topic:Organic chemistry could then work towards developing learning resources that are useful to premed students. All of the pages with learning resources suited to premeds will need to be in a category such as Category:Premedicine. --JWSchmidt 14:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, and there is now a pre-med section if I am not mistaken. I finished my pre-med several years ago and I will be happy to help fill up the topics like Orgo, Biochem, general Bio, Inorganic, etc. --Wikisystole 22:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

November 2007 suggestion, 2009 updates
RE: HOMEPAGE  I like the idea of breaking the curriculum into "knowledge outcomes" but it becomes difficult to decide where to draw the line. Every medical school in the US has to prepare students for the USMLE. SO, categories of instruction (i.e. "classes") need to be organized around these consensus topics. There is a bit of variation from school to school, for example MSU has a class on evidenced based medicine, while the Univ. of Minnesota does not. We have something called "physician and society" that addresses a medley of social skills and understandings needed to practice medicine. Basic statistics is also included in this course. Ethics, stats, social skills are all tested on USMLE.

We need to be clear... I'm assuming this is allopathic medicine. Other schools or traditions would have different curricula. So far I haven't seen a home page that resembles anything like my medical school. Here's what my first year curriculum looked like:

Gross Anatomy Biochem Histology

Physiology (renal, GI, cardio, respiratory) Neurology Microbiology (virology and bacteriology mostly)

-Christopher Loren Thompson 2nd year medical student at University of Minnesota, electro.thompson@gmail.com

I have seen a lot of good suggestions on this page and I am not sure if they were carried out or not but I really don't like the current format of the page, its departments and its overall organisation. I feel that a wiki"versity" website should be aimed at giving university-level education to anyone that wishes to receive it. Therefore, it should cater primarily, but not exclusively to medical students and the advancement of their learning. In essence, It should provide knowledge of medical topics that will enable medical students to enhance their skills. After all, this is not supposed to be an encyclopedia, more a university.

I suggest a complete revamp of the opening page in the school of medicine and I have created a temporary school of medicine webpage that allows people to view and comment on the suggested new page. The real inspiration for this was seeing neurology split into many different topics. Also, cardiology was split into medical and surgical. At the end of the day, cardiology is cardiology and the medical and surgical sides should remain in the same department

I see that noone has suggested anything in a few months but I hope I get some feedback on my suggestion, no matter what it is. DónalMcK 12.32PM (GMT)


 * I think you're thinking along the right track, Dónal (in terms of providing practical guidance for students of medicine). I'm also unsure of how we're breaking subjects into disciplines, and of what implications that has for providing for learning experiences. In many ways, I think interdisciplinary approaches might work best - and particularly in certain fields, of which medicine is one. (However, this is not to say that we don't also need specialised areas - medicine is probably the most specialised subject there is!) So, I'm all in favour of discussion about how to structure content and activity better - and I'm looking forward to seeing your efforts. One final caveat however - I don't think we need to fall into the trap of providing one route through a subject, but rather multiple paths that learners can explore as much or as little as they like - that way we don't need to worry about the superstructure of a page like this, but instead provide links to different kinds of learning materials and activities through things like portals. Cormaggio talk 12:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I completely agree with that. For example: in the department of Obs and gynae there will be page(s) dedicated to reproductive anatomy and this page should have links to the schools of medicine, nursing, midwifery, anatomy etc. However, anatomy and physiology links for example should be the responsibility of people involved in those schools despite the fact that the different schools will be involved in the writing of pages that straddle different disciplines. The page is ready if you want to have a look and let me know. I have prob left some things out but there may be suggestions you make that I think should be contained within a department. For example, in the original page there is a department dedicated to pain medicine, whereas i see that as a part of anaesthetics. You may also want to see urology and gastroenterology combined into generl surgery. If we keep this discussion going and more people join in, we will have a pretty decent school up and running pretty shortly. Please look at my pages entitled Topic:Obstetrics & Gynecology and Gynecological history taking as I am new to this and qould appreciate feedback :)


 * Yes, I agree with that view. As far as the formal structure of this school is confirmed, I think it's best to group things together like cardiology and vascular medicine, etc. It's not really that important so likely any suggestions would be better than the current scheme. I've made some copy-edits but I think the suggestion is fine, we can wait for a few days and then just change the page. I think some topics like the case studies can be organised both per discipline and as a learning pathway per se. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 13:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I like your thinking, if i have it right? The cardiology cases can be accessed both from the department's main page and from the academic department which will list all cases. This academic section I also envisaged as having all anatomy and physiology pages as well as the pages of other disciplines related to medicine. This will, I hope give the school a systemic approach as well as an approach from a disciplinary stand-point


 * I was also thinking about keeping the structure of each department as similar to the next as humanly possible. The motive for that is that, for medical students really, they rotate around specialties and if they have found the school helpful for one they will keep coming back if the structure is the same. What you guys think?
 * DónalMcK 13.34 20/10/07


 * I'm in no way qualified to comment on the actual structuring of medicine-related pages, so I'll leave it to you guys and others to discuss. :-) However, I do think the idea of breaking up the subject into knowledge and skills could be useful. Cormaggio talk 13:42, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Well in that case i might just run with this until someone tells me to stop lol :)

DónalMcK 20/10/07 1400

Hide/reveal function
Can anyone explain to me how to write a code for hiding and revealing information on a wiki page. I have seen examples of quizes before but i am looking for something a little different. I want to ask questions but, instead of asking the reader to insert answers, i just want them to click a reveal button that will reveal the answer, hopefully in a different color or font. I then want them to be able to hide it again if they so wish. Can anyone help?
 * Another thing besides the quizes is such a expand/collapse box (example here). There you can make normal wiki text (also in color). Would this be helpful ? Erkan Yilmaz ( Wikiversity:Chat, wiki blog ) 19:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Erkan, that works really well. I have implemented it in my writing of Gynecology Case 1. I need one more piece of information to help me complete the case. I want to align the answers to a case history on the right hand side of the expand box. I assume that I need the tab function for that? Can you, or anyone else, help me? DónalMcK 08:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I am not sure, if I understood this, but did you want something like this ? Aligning could also be done with a html table (see e.g. Tables in HTML). Erkan Yilmaz ( Wikiversity:Chat, wiki blog ) 09:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Not really, but it will work fine, thanks. DónalMcK 09:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I see. How about giving it a try to explain it, so I can understand it ? I mean isn't this a similar scenario, when a patient comes to a doctor and there the doctor asks questions to identify the problems of the patient, if something is still unclear. Because miscommunication can happen in many forms.
 * And since you asked a request I would feel uncomfortable that you did not have a satisfying answer. I will also ask others to see, if they can help in this case. What do you say ? Erkan Yilmaz ( Wikiversity:Chat, wiki blog ) 10:00, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds great. The idea I was looking for is contained in the third box in the case. When a doctor needs to find out more information about a patient he asks specific and structured questions. Each structure differs depending on the initial complant. The third box gives an example of this structure for this particular presenting complaint. The doctor first asks "onset". I want this to appear on the left. Patient says it started "4 months ago". I want this to appear on the right. You showed me how to do that. I think it is good enough. I would be perfectly satisfied if it can appear somewhere on the right with the first letter of each word forming a perfect vertical line down the box, much in the same way the tab function appears in a word document for example. But, as I have said, if it is too difficult, the previous solution will work fine. DónalMcK 13:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

No reply :(
I see that there have been no replies to my proposed medical curriculum. I want people to get involved in adding content to this project and I want to get stuck in right away myself but I would prefer to have a couple of people to join me on agreeing certain issues. This the plan for the development of the school as I see it:


 * 1) Agree an overall curriculum ✅
 * 2) Decide on how many levels and modules and which departments will be responsible✅
 * 3) Design front page for the school ✅
 * 4) Contact other schools regarding the design of departments that come under the umbrella of both schools ✅
 * 5) Design pages for the solely medical departments ✅
 * 6) Agree a curriculum for each module in turn
 * 7) Decide on the lessons and write lesson plans
 * 8) Edit/Add Content according to the lesson plans
 * 9) Review!!

If people wish to join the discussion please feel free. Go raibh mile maith agaibh 15:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hello Donek, if the reaction on your posts is not fast enough from your point of view (most of the times "we" expect/assume something and therefore we get disappointed, but if you change this expectation/assumptions things may look quite the other way) or there is no reaction, just start editing: be bold. Later on people will join. You just have to motivate them with good learning resources.
 * If you want you can also have a look at what the other Wikiversities have done so far:
 * French WV: fr:Catégorie:Médecine
 * German WV: de:Kategorie:Fach:Medizin
 * Spanish WV: es:Categoría:Medicina
 * Look at the version history of the pages and you will see active contributors whom you can ask to start a project alltogether. You could also look at Wikipedia's w:Portal:Medicine.
 * About point1: nothing is permanent - actually we are a wiki - and even in a few months you may say yourself that what you agree today on is not ok. So just start with a version1 and flow with the wiki towards the learning experience. Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat (try) 19:15, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, I will. I intend in the next couple of hours to create a design for this school based on the structures proposed at various community discussions. Then the school can be developed according to my proposed format of co-operation above. I will go it alone and hopefully people can join me. Go raibh mile maith agaibh 16:44, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Can you add the Department of Military Medicine (http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Topic:Military_medicine) to the level 5 list? I use it quite a bit (albeit a little sparse) and I know others I work with use it also.  Thanks..


 * I certainly will and thanks for notifying me. Although, I hope to create a special study area on the main page of the school underneath where the levels are posted. I hope I can post the military medicine department in this section, but it seems to be the only special study area at the moment so it would be silly to do so now. I will place the military department under level 5 for now, but I would like to know if you would agree with me that military medicine is not a mainstream field, although an important one, and should eventually be classified as a special area of interest? Go raibh mile maith agaibh 18:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Special area of medical interest --> yes agreed. Mainstream --> not so much.  Thanks for putting it back on the list.

MedRevise
I am not mentioning this site to be an advert, merely a question. I am an admin at a medical revision site called MedRevise. Our aim is to provide a interactive medical revision wiki, in effect. In what ways could we affiliate, or pool with this project? We use Mediawiki, so are very compatible.MedRevise 00:05, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Welcome to Wikiversity. I suggest that you create a page here at Wikiversity about MedRevise, on a page such as MedRevise. Provide a factual account of the website and its educational value. Wikiversity content is licensed under the GFDL and so it is available for re-use for commercial purposes. It looks like MedRevise specifies non-commercial. That means that you can copy material from here to there but we cannot copy material from there to here. Feel free to make reasonable links from Wikiversity to educational content on the MedRevise website. As time goes on, there seems to be more and more wikis concerned with medical topics, it is important that they cooperate and not spread the efforts of contributors too thin. --JWSchmidt 00:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject medicine on en.wiki
Hi, I suggest we invite members of Wikiproject medicine on en.wiki to participate in this project, this will give the project a big push, since many of those members are hard workers :-), I ll desgin a template and send invitations, what do you think?? Madhero88 14:12, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it is a good idea to encourage Wikipedians to edit here, but be careful with "desgin a template". Most Wikipedians do not like to be spammed, even if it is spam for a sister project. Rather than go to individual user talk pages with a template, I would suggest a simple talk page message at the Wikiproject. --JWSchmidt 16:36, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Hello. I'm one of the active members of WikiProject Medicine over at wp-en, and I would like to say that personally, I will be more than happy to added to the School of Medicine. I'll be contacting my peers as soon as possible for them to get to the matter, and hopefully we can get this project tip-top shape as soon as possible. As for now, I would conclude you with a very passionate yes from WPMED! Best of luck. Renaissancee 03:37, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Surgery and surgical specialties?
Hi, I think that all of the surgical specialties but orhtopedics, have not been considered in the clinical department. Is there a reason why? Betosasieta 00:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I just added this wiki to a wiki list.
I added this wiki to a medical wiki list. Correct me if something wrong there. 183.38.185.113 08:50, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

guidance
i am a medical student and want to help medicine school on wikiversity with systemic pathology, i need guidance how to help the project out.

Mido XV (talk) 18:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Anyone active here?
I want to get involved. Lesion (talk) 10:42, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Hello! I am a few months behind you in discovering Wikiversity, but if you ever wander back this way and notice this notice, feel free to drop me a line. I have decided to jump in and start experimenting, you are welcome to join me! Bron766 (discuss • contribs) 12:24, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Please feel free to start by composing courses, lectures, content pertinent to medicine. Enjoy! I am only indirectly involved through my projects of interest with respect to phosphate biochemistry, some psychology, humanities, my human gene project, and further removed, my original research into the scientific term dominant group. General questions are best asked at the colloquium or as you have done at the help desk. I'll try to help where I can. --Marshallsumter (talk) 02:24, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Generally, I like what you've done with the place. Some of the learning resources I've been working on may be of interest to FOAM users, but when I went to the FOAM website I found no reciprocal advertisement for Wikiversity. This is concerning because anyone may mistake the excellent work you've done here as SPAM for FOAM.com. May I suggest some comparable reciprocity so that interested medical learners may also come here. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 16:47, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, I had planned to start promoting this after I had a few ideas a bit further developed. A lot of other FOAM websites are exceptionally well produced by very talented people, it's a bit intimidatingly so! I hadn't realised it could look like spam, (FOAM is a philosophy, not just 1 website), thanks for your help. One problem with your 40% width divs is that they do not cope well with resizing the page width, e.g. to simulate different aspect ratios on tablets etc. or internet explorer windows snapped to half the screen (the picture overlaps the box, the title of the nav box is all squished). Is there a way of improving this? Bron766 (discuss • contribs) 22:50, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You might ask your aspect question on the Colloquium page. I'm still getting use to how to present information here myself. With respect to the LITFL website, it is a .com which indicates buying things or services or information, and possible copyright concerns. I've sent an email to mike cadogan with respect to reciprocity of learning resources so hopefully we may post links there as well. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 23:22, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I've also sent an email to Dr. Falagas at e-meducation in Greece inquirying about reciprocal linkage. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 21:00, 4 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Mike Cadogan (LITFL) has chosen not to respond, so I see no reason to send "customers" to his website.
 * Dr. Vangelis Alexiou, e-meducation.org administrator, has kindly responded to my email with, "Thank you for your email. E-meducation is a portal for health care professionals. Your website is really interesting and useful but not really relevant to e-meducation." As we cater to students, I would be hard pressed to concur that we should carry a link to e-meducation for those who are already health care professionals. Whether students may benefit from e-meducation, I leave up to you. --Marshallsumter (discuss • contribs) 22:06, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That's ok, I wouldn't worry too much about the lack of wikiversity interest. I know there isn't a lot of active, useful medical content yet so it's not surprising that people with established sites aren't buying into this just yet. The way to convince them is with quality content. Also, I don't know if there's a wikiversity policy about requiring reciprocal links that I'm missing, but I'd much rather offer people who come here a curated selection of all the best resources online (e.g. the webquest model), not just those I can negotiate reciprocal deals with. Seems more free and open to me that way. We are free to recommend the sites we think are the best and so are they. I would still tell students about the LITFL blog even if they stated they would never link back, because their blog is one of the best. Wikiversity medical pages are just not in the same league, yet. If this ever grows into a really useful resource, word will spread like wildfire and we'll get plenty of links back to here, no worries. Bron766 (discuss • contribs) 06:03, 9 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I am not ready to start contributing here but I am interested in the success of this project. If there is news here then I would appreciate cross-posted notices to WikiProject Medicine or to Wiki Project Med.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   12:59, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, I have this page watchlisted and I will post on WTMED if anything significant happens here. Lesion (discuss • contribs) 12:21, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Redevelopment progress notes
I think these notes belong on the talk page instead of the main page, so I've moved them over.

Progress report:
 * Added a school noticeboard.
 * Developing Template:Accordion, but still testing variations for titles and definitions of each section.
 * Splitting test pages into index (parent) and child pages, so that there will be 1 activity e.g. (webquest/tutorial) per page.

Planned steps:
 * Make a range of pages on a few different symptoms / investigations / diagnoses / treatments with templates for each that include a curated collection of resources and a variety of different styles/depths of explanations
 * Go back through some of the existing Wikiversity medical pages /stubs and convert them from static encyclopedia/textbook formats into interactive pages for people to explore, use and do activities with.
 * Once the format / scope is better defined and test pages are more developed, create links to Wikipedia and other FOAM sites to increase visibility and participation (this is not a priority until some useful and functional content is produced!)

As you can see above, I don't think most of my contributions are ready for prime-time yet. But I will focus more on recruiting other participants when I've got some better examples of work to show them. 58.108.147.45 (discuss) 06:16, 9 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I visited this page again and it's looking much more professional and active. I see 2 users have been editting the page back in June. Is anything still going on? and I'd like to get involved. So far I have only made 2 "lectures" e.g. this one: which I plan on building more at some point.
 * I think a medical school on wikiversity would be a great resource potentially if there is enough interest. Looking back on the comments on this page, interest is there indicated by the occasional visitor who asks if the project is alive and how they can help. Lesion (discuss • contribs) 10:48, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Hard to edit this page + not immediately obvious what resources are currently available?
Great job whoever revamped this page, it looks much more professional now. However one small thing is that it is difficult for editors with less experience of wikimarkup to edit anything without unintended outcomes... could we somehow keep a professional appearance whilst making it more editor friendly too?

Also I had to search a fair bit to find what resources are currently available, should these be advertised more prominently? Lesion (discuss • contribs) 12:15, 18 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes good point, I did edit this page a while ago but it was more of a brainstorm of what might be done than a thorough inventory of what is here. I am still experimenting, but definitely still looking to work on wikiversity medicine pages. I'll admit to being addicted to the collapse elements, but if you can redo the page to make it more user friendly (maybe a template for the whole page..?) I think that's a great idea.


 * I really, really want to try and make wikiversity about learning exercises and collections of resources, not just another encyclopedia of articles, which is another reason why I haven't spent much time listing all the existing articles/stubs etc, because I wanted to work on some styles that could be quite different to wikipedia and more oriented to learning exercises. I'd like the factual/reference medical content to eventually be moved to wikipedia/wikibooks, what do you think? I am working on two possible page styles: one is a topic index page, e.g. ECG interpretation, where I'd like to curate lots of the wonderful free online resources under explanations/examples/exercises. The other is a specific exercise page, e.g. ECG interpretation/Rate, where a few different mental exercises are suggested to help learn that topic, grouped into processing the information, quizzes to review the theory/facts, cases/scenarios to apply the knowledge to, and ways to contribute resources for other students' learning. All these ideas are quite underdeveloped as yet, but I just thought you might like to see what I'm working on. Not wanting to make a fuss or set these templates in concrete, just playing around with ideas at the moment. They are also not listed on the school page yet as they are too unstable for general use - I keep changing them as I think of different ideas to try. What are you interested in working on? Bron766 (discuss • contribs) 21:54, 19 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi. Collapsed content is good, hides a lot of stuff unless clicked on. Potentially easy for users to navigate to what they want immediately. It does create a nightmare figuring out how to edit things for inexperienced editors though. I could try to put in section headings to enable section editing?


 * Agree with you about "not just another encyclopedia". Wikipedia could never be an ideal learning repository because it disallows "how-to manual" content, which obviously is not good for clinical skills and the like. Discussions about taking a patient history, making a differential diagnosis, would certainly be deleted from wikipedia because it is not encyclopedic content, but rather content aimed specifically at medical students or graduates, not a general audience.


 * ECG pages are looking v professional. I'm also impressed with the amount of external resources that are linked out. Wikiversity could be a learning hub for both external resources and its own resources. I think it has great potential, just look at the interest in editing medical content on wikipedia. Many times you will see editors adding mnemonics and other student-orientated material which then gets deleted. If someone had been systematically moving such content here since wikipedia started, there would be a huge amount here. Wikiversity offers a much less restrictive environment for such content, and could potentially meet the needs of the this kind of wikipedia contributor more closely. I'd like to be able to build interactive content like this. Takes a little bit of work to get to grips with the wikimarkup I would imagine, but easier if there is an existing example that can be used as a template.


 * My interest would be mainly this kind of topic: Oral Medicine and Oral Pathology, and I would also be interested in forming the foundations of the school as a whole. Currently I've only added the beginnings of a few dry lecture-type pages. E.g., this: Oral ulceration (would be deleted if it was moved to wikipedia). Wikisource and wikibooks are a different matter. There appears to be some medical content there already: (already linked on main page of school) ; . I would comment that Wikisource seems to include mostly sources of historic interest, whilst wikibooks appears to be contemporary. Agree Wikibooks is an ideal repository for this kind of stuff. Wikipedia, yes, but need to be careful what kind of content goes there or it will be deleted. You will probably also be interested in Commons, which has a huge supply of medical images and some other types of media. Lesion (discuss • contribs) 00:16, 20 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Ok, to experiment I have kept the same old page format but put most of the scary code stuff into a template Template:School homepage, and made some of the most obvious places that new editors might want to contribute to as template fields. So all you need to do to add to the noticeboard is type something under . If you go to edit the page now, do you think that is easier? Can you improve this further? I think my field names are too long... Didn't want too many because anyone can of course edit the template once they know where to find it too. Bron766 (discuss • contribs) 06:50, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
 * This is a hundred times more simple to edit, great job. I guess one of the most useful things I could do at this stage is make an inventory of all the existing content we have, and how developed it is, and put it in some on-going template for easy visibility on the main page? ...  I think would be a good place to start. Lesion (discuss • contribs) 10:34, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

New Class Roll and Redevelopment Ideas
I am just about to change the school page again, comments welcome. Does anyone want to sign the experimental 'class roll' to show their support/interest in the project? I'm not sure if many/any are active here, it's hard to tell...

Still experimenting with different ways of using wikiversity to set it apart from Wikipedia as an educational hub... The flexibility allowed by custom templates etc. is great, but deciding on what is likely to work best is tough! Here are a few ideas about Wikiversity's strengths and problems relevant to medicine... can anyone add to this?

Strengths:
 * Unlike Wikipedia, Wikiversity can allow a broader range of external links and primary research. This is great for increasing awareness of resources like high quality, peer-reviewed medical blogs / videos / podcasts.
 * Wikiversity can make simple quizzes. Medical students love revision questions!

Problems:
 * The quality and reliability of information here cannot be guaranteed. Assessing the quality of an information source is vital in medicine. As a quick guide, quality sources come from respected authors / organisations without commercial conflicts of interest, they may be peer reviewed (even blogs can be peer reviewed) and may have been published recently. You can read more about choosing good quality sources here.
 * Possible solution: Wikiversity may be good as an educational hub for collecting and sharing learning resources, but just like Wikipedia the original sources should be provided where possible (with information about authors, commercial interests, peer review and recency etc...) so that students can assess the reliability of each resource before they use it.
 * There is no easy way for students to track their progress through pages/links they have explored or quizzes they have done.
 * Possible solution: Content could be listed on somewhere like Learnist, where students can mark each item as done with a free account. Or, a free Moodle installation could be explored with Wikiversity integration ... Or an extension could perhaps show checkboxes to logged in Wikiversity users for them to record which things they have 'done' (no idea if this is possible)...Bron766 (discuss • contribs) 23:50, 4 November 2013 (UTC)