Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Dartmouth Medical School/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 18:32, 1 January 2008.

[edit] Dartmouth Medical School

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Self-nomination: I think this is a very strong article and meets -- or will meet, with your suggestions -- the FA criteria. Dylan (talk) 01:10, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. Oppose seems like too strong a word but "Support" and "Oppose" are the choices. I would support with improvement. I support the article as a good article. I do have some suggestions. More may come.

  • Nothing is mentioned about residency training. This is where doctors learn to be specialists or primary care physicians.
  • Residency training is indeed discussed under "Academics", although not in great detail. I can expand the discussion, but as residencies are more or less the same everywhere (in terms of what the residents do), it didn't seem to me that it needed more of a mention than that it exists and how many residents there are. What sort of information would you like to see? Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm no medical expert. But I think some fields are missing at DMS like PMR, ENT, eye, etc.Congolese (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Nothing is mentioned about the Brown-Dartmouth program, which may have been recently discontinued.
  • I had never heard of it before; none of the sources I used mentioned such a program. It seems you are likely correct about it being discontinued, as the only link to it that I found ([1]) is broken. Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I found a link in 10 seconds. There are more but here is one http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2007/04/25/CampusNews/BrownDartmouth.Medical.Program.To.End.In.2010-2879631.shtmlCongolese (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Nothing is mentioned about tuition.
  • Do you want it simply stated what the cost of tuition is? That seems like kind of a non sequitur; it wouldn't flow in any of the sections. Also, in my fairly extensive experience with articles on educational institutions (including FAs), I can't think of an instance in which the tuition is listed. Unless the tuition itself has some particularly unique or notable aspect (very high or very low; controversy over it; in-state/out-of-state discrepancy), it doesn't really seem relevant in encyclopedic coverage. Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Are New Hampshire students charged less?Congolese (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Very little is mentioned about the teaching hospitals. Aren't the hospitals a major component of medical schools, more so than even medical libraries? Perhaps under academics a new section or sub-heading about clinical education could be added?
  • The teaching hospitals are given a full paragraph under "Campus," and discussion of clinical training is included in the year-by-year rundown of the M.D. program. I'm happy to expand that, though; what sort of information would you like to see discussed in that proposed section? Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I think that the residency part is equally important as the medical student part. If you don't know what to write, I'll think of something even though I'm no medical expert. I just know how to pull up references.Congolese (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Do they have residencies in otolaryngology, ophthalmology, or physical medicine and rehabilitation as they don't have these departments on your list (and might not have these departments at all, if your list is accurate).
I don't accuse you of censorship. But Harvard has a full complement of residencies, DMS is a bit short, probably because it is in a small town. Congolese (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • There is no mention of the school being a 3 year medical school ini the 1970's and 1980's when most other schools were 4 years in length. Why was it 3 years? How was it different?
  • Unless I missed it (I double-checked), the sources I used didn't ever mention such a thing. I asked Google, and no other sources seem to indicate as such, either. That seems to suggest to me that either that wasn't the case (though you sound pretty well-versed in DMS history, more so than me, so I balk at questioning you there) or that it's generally seen as an unimportant detail not worth mentioning. I'd be happy to include it if you can direct me to a reliable source discussing the matter. Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Again, I'm pretty stupid except I remember what I read. See http://library.dartmouth.edu/cdp/read.php?cdp_id=55 under history. It was a 3 year medical school that was changed to 4 years in 1979.Congolese (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Didn't the hospital move from the main campus in the 1990's?
  • Yes. This is explicitly explained in "From the 'refounding' to present" section. Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Why include Boxer Wachler as a famous alumni? Even if we restrict it to the same specialty, John Bullock is more famous, at least according to google listed sources.
  • The famous alums that are there are listed because they have Wikipedia articles. As far as I can tell, that's an exhaustive list of alums with articles (I checked every "What links here" for possible alums). Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Looking at the internet, it looks like Boxer is a salesman who got a WP article. Again, I'm no expert but Bullock is in the same field and he was a department chairman. If you choose other specialties, there are even more famous people from Dartmouth. Maybe you got fooled by the guy? Congolese (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Aerial photo possible? I can't see if the school is small or large?
  • I don't own a plane, so no, at least not a free one. And an un-free one wouldn't be acceptable under fair use because it would be a picture of existing buildings. I checked my files for a picture taken from Baker tower for a good shot of the Medical School -- but nothing doing -- it doesn't offer a clear view. I also tried find a citation describing the exact acreage of the campus, but there doesn't appear to be any such information. Any other ideas on how to convey size, verifiably? Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
If you want an aerial photo you could always list it under external links. A plus but not a requirement for a FA. Congolese (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • The above are content issues. About style issues, can you find more references so that they are not so heavily dependent on Dartmouth sourced references? One of the FA criteria is neutrality. This is partially achieved if more non-Dartmouth references are used.
  • I'll try to migrate away from Dartmouth sources, but it's worth noting that the Dartmouth sources are largely used to cite: (1) information that is only available from Dartmouth, like the specific programs offered (i.e. no one else covers that topic in as much detail); and (2) non-controversial information, like what degrees are offered and the enrollment breakdown. The only source I could find to offer critical opinions was The Princeton Review, which I did cite, even though it had almost exclusively positive things to say. Nevertheless, I do agree that this article could stand to include more opinions, so I'll try to root out some more and use more non-Dartmouth sources. Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Are all the photos free use or not?
  • Yes, they are all free Commons photos except for the school seal, which has a valid fair use rationale. Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Are the lead 2 paragraphs really the best that you can do? Is it really a good summary?
  • Well, you tell me. What's wrong with it? I think it's a pretty good summary -- it touches on all the major sections to be discussed. If you point out what you don't like about it, I'll work on improving it. Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Copy edit it, like the 2nd paragraph under history, the sentence is not grammatically correct.
  • I've changed that particular sentence and have requested a copyedit from the LOCE. Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Are all the references checked to see that there is no author? If there is an author to a webpage, then it must be listed.
  • Yes -- every citation was added by me when I totally retooled the article, and I added authors whenever one was provided. Most of these sources come from general information sites (often DMS's site itself) which do not offer information on individual authorship. Dylan (talk) 06:12, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
  • One of the requirements is being comprehensive. This can be met by including some of the content issues mentioned. Congolese (talk) 05:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
  • On Oppose seeming too strong a word: "Objection" or "Object" are also choices, where you have specific objections, but believe that they will be addressed, an objection is not for where you believe there are "endless" objections that won't be addressed during the FAC, the difference is subtle and mostly irrelevant. I personally like the word objecting more than the word opposing.--Kiyarrllston 14:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Good luck. My comments are meant to help improve, not to say that the article is bad. Congolese (talk) 07:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Oppose, for now. Too much rehash of information easy to find on the Web (eg, the school's own website), too little use of any other sources. Some questions I have:

  • Is the tertiary care hospital there part of the university, or separate? How are they related, and what is the history of that relationship? That hospital is a regional referral center; how large is it relative to the medical school, and to the university apart from the medical school? The article mentions there is a relationship but gives no details; this part is very unclear.
  • How does the hospital, and the school, compare to others in the region?
  • Is there a school of nursing too? How is it related to the medical school?
  • Greater interaction between medical schools and graduate schools, particularly via biology departments, is a growing theme among the Ivy League universities with medical schools; what is happening at Dartmouth along these lines?
  • What is the history of women, minorities, foreign nationals, etc. at DMS?
  • The article needs a map of the area, so the reader has some idea of how far apart the towns are that are mentioned as locations of DMS and the hospital(s).
  • due to a national shortage of physicians and government incentives for schools that increased their class sizes, Dartmouth Medical School graduates began to experience difficulty in trying to transfer to already-full clinical schools of medicine. The two situations were coincident, but the causal relationship is not apparent. I would expect a shortage to lead to less difficulty for transfer students, not more.
  • DHMC serves a patient population of 1.6 million. Say what?!
  • I don't understand the "composite" MCAT score of applicants.

I hope this review inspires more research and writing. --Una Smith (talk) 05:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.