A medical student and a post-doctoral researcher have written a report stating that medical doctors could and should spend more time writing and editing Wikipedia pages that relate to medical topics. The two believe Wikipedia’s popularity as a source of online consumer health information warrants attention by those who have been especially trained in the nuances of health care and issues.
The report was published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). Michael R. Laurent, medical student from Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and Tim J. Vickers, post-doctoral researcher from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, observed a trend which led them to their report.
In popular search engines, Wikipedia pages fell within the top 10 returned listings 71% to 85% of the time, based on a range of health-related search criteria. Because of this existing reality, and because anyone can update Wikipedia’s web pages without raising concerns over potential inaccuracy issues, the two believed it important for doctors to step up and provide true expertise to the website’s content.
The report says also others could help as well, like patient groups and associations. All of these could add to the accuracy of Wikipedia.
See the original AP article republished on Yahoo Tech.
I think it’s everybody who uses Wikipedia’s responsibility to update the pages they visit when they see inaccurate or incomplete information. In fact, if you’ve never done it you might be surprised to learn it only takes a minute and is quite easy to do.
In addition, Wikipedia’s main English page has a lot of information near the bottom about various Wiki-related projects that could use input or help as well. There’s also a help page which provides a jumping-off place for finding out more information about maintaining Wikipedia.
While many of the commands are intuitive and can be derived by existing content within the page, some new abilities can be added which are desirable. That help page can literally be just what the doctor ordered for keeping Wikipedia as healthy as possible!