User talk:WhatamIdoing/Archive 1

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Contents 1 Contaminated haemophilia blood products 2 Looking for a WikiProgrammer, I suppose 3 ?? 4 I finally understand 5 How are you assessing all these medical articles so quickly? 6 Great job! 7 I never said that... 8 abilitism? Huh? 9 Talk:Women's Interagency HIV Study 10 Poliomyelitis 11 Merging articles 12 Lack of medical cat class 13 Thanks 14 Art therapy 15 Hello 16 December 2007 17 AfD nomination of Germanic New Medicine 18 Thank you 19 Hydropenia & dehydration 20 WPMED tag 21 Rhabdomyolysis 22 Using PMID 23 Autogynephilia 24 Please tell us more about yourself 25 Using case reports 26 External links 27 Helminthic therapy 28 Rhabdo 29 Fetal Pain 30 Pain and nociception 31 Barnstar for good works 32 Unknown etiology 33 User:Jessica Liao 34 The Barnstar of Diligence 35 Good Samaritan Hospital (Suffern) 36 WPMED tags 37 Rhabdo etc 38 cognitive reserve vs loss of memory 39 Free-running sleep 40 Assessment 41 External linking guidelines

[edit] Contaminated haemophilia blood products

Oh, thanks for the uh ... thanks. =) I just spent a day last September and got a decent article put together. Maybe I'll get back into article writing again. Also, this page might be of some help to you. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for a WikiProgrammer, I suppose

Hello! I'm sorry for the late answer! You're idea is fantastic. I'd use it myself as well. I think your man is Betacommand. Please contact him and let me know when you have something ready. Thank you in advance! NCurse _work 19:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit]  ??

Do you have a reference stating that self-contained classrooms are not provided in the mainstream school? From what I have heard, it is provided in the mainstream school. Mainstreaming is the practice of educating students with special needs in regular classes during specific time periods based on their skills. Students with severe special needs are placed in self-contained classes but are mainstreamed in their other regular classes. Special needs students must be mainstreamed in the mainstream school. The only exception is if mainstreaming is IMPOSSIBLE, then they are placed in either a special school or receiving one to one instruction. --Nitsirk 20:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

An individual student who never spends any time with nondisabled students is not considered mainstreamed, no matter what else is going on elsewhere in the school. Mainstreaming is a practice applied to individual students, not to buildings. Any given (large) school could simultaneously use full inclusion, partial inclusion, mainstreaming and segregation. The mere existence of mainstreaming elsewhere in the building does not means that any individual segregated student is being mainstreamed. WhatamIdoing 20:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Self-contained classes are for children with severe special needs in the mainstream school. This means they must also be with typically developing peers. For example, recess, cafeteria, assemblies, hallways, regular classes, etc. Otherwise what is the point of being in the mainstream school? If they cannot function in the mainstream school, they must be in a special school or receiving one to one instruction. --Nitsirk 20:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

No, you missed my point. It is possible for a child with severe needs to attend a school which generally permits mainstreaming, but which does not allow that individual student to participate in any class with non-disabled students. For convenience, we might say that "the school" normally mainstreams appropriate students with disabilities (to differentiate it from a school which prefers the full inclusion model), but the fact is that it is not schools, but students who are mainstreamed or not. You could not justly tell my neighbor that her child is being mainstreamed because some other disabled child attends music class with non-disabled students in a completely different part of the same school building.

As for the point behind a segregated classroom in a supposedly mainstreaming school: In the U.S., having a government-run school which is exclusively for the use of disabled students is considered practically illegal under least restrictive environment rules. Placing a child in a segregated classroom in the corner of a regular school building is very easy, but you pretty much have to get a court order to place a child in a segregated facility. This may not be true elsewhere in the world, but it is -- in everyday practice -- true here. (The student may receive no obvious benefits in a wholly segregated classroom vs. a segregated school, but I hear from parents that they are less embarrassed by having their child attend the same school as their neighbors' kids. Perhaps making the parents (voters) happy is the only real point behind this policy.) WhatamIdoing 21:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

HUH? What are you talking about? If my special needs child was being separated from the other children without special needs, I would be angry. Why don't the parents say something to the school? If they are separated, they might as well attend a special school. Why are they doing this? This is wrong and against the law. Which schools are doing this? I have never heard of this taking place in my school district. --Nitsirk 00:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, an enormous number of US schools do this. How often do you see a nineteen-year-old with severe intellectual disabilities and severe behavioral problems in a regular high school classroom? Have you ever seen a disabled three-year-old child in a regular classroom? (Keep in mind that there are no regular public school classrooms for three year olds in the U.S.)

It would be cruel to take a child who is frightened by the noise and activity involved in a class of 25 kids and dump them in one simply because of an ideological commitment to mainstreaming and inclusion practices. These decisions must be made in the best interests of the individual student. And, yes, there are a number of parents who oppose segregation. That doesn't mean that it doesn't (or shouldn't) happen.

And -- this has very little to do with the Wikipedia article, which just needs to explain the four basic options (inclusion, mainstreaming, segregation, and exclusion) so that people can figure out what the differences are. WhatamIdoing 00:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Segregation and exclusion is the same thing. So you didn't answer my question, why don't parents say something to the school if they are segregating their special needs child? --Nitsirk 00:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Segregation means that you get to go to school with other disabled students. Exclusion means you are not even allowed to attend a school. You can not seriously mean to tell a student who is locked up in juvenile prison because of conduct disorder that his jailhouse studies are just the same as attending an all-day special ed class. Have you perhaps forgotten that there's rather more to disabilities than Down Syndrome and wheelchairs?

I don't know why more parents don't throw temper tantrums over this. Perhaps because it's fairly unusual? Perhaps it's because they care more about their individual student's needs than about ideology? Perhaps because they think a custom-tailored program is better for their child than a regular one-size-fits-most classroom? Perhaps it's because they had their say in a long legal process and lost?

Whatever the answer for their decisions, I consider it wholly irrelevant. It happens, and we document it here. Racism happens, too, and I don't pretend to be able to explain why people don't scream about that, either. WhatamIdoing 00:30, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

There is compulsory education which means that children are required to receive an education. It doesn't matter if the child was expelled from school; the school is still legally required to provide an education to the child. If they cannot attend school, they must be given one to one instruction. --Nitsirk 01:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You're right: students under a certain age are required to receive an education. However, an expelled student -- or one who is in the hospital -- is still excluded from school. That's what the exclusion option is. An excluded student might not receive one-on-one instruction. Jailhouse classrooms often have 20 kids in them. WhatamIdoing 01:45, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

But most often they will receive the one-on-one instruction if they are in the hospital. There are people who care about children. This would be interesting if we had a reference stating that there are schools that are violating the law. Why don't we just put the correct things (what should be done in schools) on wikipedia? And the violations against the law should be put in a different section? That way the people who read it wouldn't be offend it. --Nitsirk 11:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

One, because Wikipedia documents reality instead of fantasy. Two, because segregating specific disabled students into a self-contained classroom is not illegal.

Schools don't generally do this with kids who have any hope of functioning in a regular classroom. You will not find kids with Down syndrome or moderate dyslexia or mild autism spectrum disorder being segregated.

It is, however, an appropriate option for a small number of children. Picture a twelve year old with severe disabilities for a minute. He's very noisy. He's essentially nonverbal. He's frequently violent when frustrated. He has basically zero self-care skills and is still in diapers. His IEP has all but given up on reading and is focusing on teaching him not to run into the street. Would you dump that child in a classroom with 25 typical preteens? What benefit do you think that child would get from a normal classroom?

How about this student? She's 20 years old and has a severe metabolic disorder. She weighs sixty pounds and has never in her life sat up or rolled over, much less crawled or walked. She still drinks from a bottle and wears diapers. She can't hold her bottle or reach for a toy. She can't talk, although she cries and coos like a newborn baby. In fact, she behaves like a one-month-old infant in almost every respect. Would you put that student into a normal classroom? Would you dump her in a 12th grade English class just because of her age? (This student lives not quite five miles from me: I'm not making this up.)

By U.S. federal law, disabled students are entitled to a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. "Appropriate" is defined according to whether or not the child gets educational benefit. No educational benefit from being in the regular classroom means that it's inappropriate. Inappropriate means illegal. If full-time segregation in a special classroom at a regular school is appropriate, then the school is allowed to do it. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but these are the facts. WhatamIdoing 17:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

You don't have any references stating that special needs students are allowed to be segregated in a special education classroom. I don't know where you get your infomation from but it is definitely wrong. The law states that special needs students MUST be with students without special needs in the mainstream school. That's reality. When schools violate the law, that's something that should be mentioned in the article but it should not be stated like what they did was right. That's what I meant. When schools segregate special needs students in the mainstream school completely, that is not a fact. That is a violation of the law. This should be mentioned in the article. It is wrong to say that is right. How can you say that in an article that it is right to do this? It's a violation of the law. I mean we should put in a separate section about how schools are violating the law. I didn't mean to put their violations into a good thing. That's not what I meant. --Nitsirk 20:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Putting a severely disabled student into a full-time, self-contained special needs classroom IS NOT ILLEGAL in the U.S. See for example the (federal) U.S. Department of Education's own website, which says "In elementary and secondary schools, disabled students may be assigned to separate facilities or courses of special education only when this placement is necessary to provide equal educational opportunity to them."[1] This statement, by the way, includes sending a disabled student to an entirely different school, not just putting them in a special classroom at the neighborhood school.

I don't care what your moral views on this subject are. I don't really care what the laws are in your country. I'm just telling you that it's done, and done legally, here in the U.S. One of the reasons that the concept of mainstreaming in education is important is because the mainstreaming approach reduces the number of kids who spend their entire day away from typical kids.

Oh, and if you're curious, the U.S. Department of Education said ten years ago that 22% of disabled students in this country were in segregated classrooms.[2] I think it is were actually illegal, then we wouldn't have more than one million disabled students in segregated classrooms. WhatamIdoing 05:06, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I finally understand

I can understand that the cost to send a special needs child to a special school can be expensive. I guess in this case it would be appropriate for a child with very severe special needs to be placed in the mainstream school to make the cost cheaper. I think we should say that in some cases where the cost of sending a child to a special school is impossible due to the expenses. Then it would be appropriate to place them in the mainstream school. But they cannot be with the other children due to their severe special needs. I was thinking about the other self-contained classes where children are placed there because they cannot function in the regular class. For this whole time, we were both talking about two different types of self-contained classrooms. Thanks so much for your patience. --Nitsirk 16:13, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How are you assessing all these medical articles so quickly?

Just wondering. Oftentimes your edits are only a minute apart? -- Samir 23:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Samir,

Assessing some of them is really quite easy: Stubs are usually tagged as stubs already. Anything that's a dozen screenfuls is really too long to be a Start class. The harder ones I usually skip, actually. Note that I'm also usually assessing either the quality or the importance in any given edit. It's twice as many clicks in the end, but much simpler mentally.

I also work in tabs, so I typically open twenty or more articles at a time, scan through all of them (sometimes offline), and then assess them in a kind of leapfrog fashion. While the browser window is opening the first Talk page, I'm refreshing my memory about the next article. Then I flip back to the first tab to paste in my assessment and edit summary for that article. While it's closing and reloading the Talk page for the first article, I'm already editing the next one. It's efficient, if somewhat mind-numbing.

I've also accepted the fact that my assessment is not the One True Assessment™. I don't imagine that I mark things low importance when they're really high, or the other way around, but the difference between 'borderline low' and 'borderline mid' is pretty obscure sometimes. Sometimes I skip those and sometimes I figure that we'll agree more than 90% of the time, and that the rest will get cleaned up later.

With the recent effort to tag several thousand articles, there's a lot of work to be done here, and I've only got a couple of days until my real life gets super busy again. Hope this helps explain my process. (I'd be happy to have you join in the task!) WhatamIdoing 00:05, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Good job. It's a challenge getting through as many as you do. -- Samir 04:14, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Great job!

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		Delighted to present you the barnstar for all the hard work you have done especially for the project assessment Countincr ( t@lk ) 19:30, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I never said that...

I never said that they weren’t any disadvantages to mainstreaming. When did I say that? There are plenty of disadvantages to mainstreaming. Inclusive schools are better than mainstream schools. They teach children to learn together. Do mainstream schools do that? NO! They even stole the term inclusion and used it in their mainstreaming model. They added these "fake" inclusion classes to their model. Is that corrupt? YES!

If you are having problems, why don't you just talk to me instead of talking to Dekimasu? I feel very hurt that you don't even want to talk to me when you have a problem. --Nitsirk 23:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

And also, it says on the introduction that mainstreaming is the practice of educating students with special needs in regular classes during specific time periods based on their SKILLS. Therefore, in order to be in regular classes, special needs students must have skills! So how would they intefere with the education of students without special needs?

"Parents of students often fear that general education teachers do not have the training or the time to accommodate special needs students in a general education classroom setting. However, professional training and supportive services can usually mitigate these concerns."

This needs a reference. There is no reference to claim that this is true. --Nitsirk 23:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] abilitism? Huh?

I just want a source that says "the fact that abilitism has a more direct connection to Latin grammar than ableism" I believe it, but I wonder if it is really notable, why is Latin grammar the metric for the "correctness" of a word? It seemed sort of nit-picking and pedantic, so I guess think there there should be a pedant's name to put behind it, otherwise it's original research and the whole section could go. You know? futurebird (talk) 18:57, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Latin is the primary source of English words (and of course we're talking about a specifically English word). But basically, I think we agree: it's kind of a random bit of trivia, even if it turns out to be accurate. I'll add a note to the Talk page in case anyone can come up with a source. (Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that someone's going to think a source that says "100K Google hits for ableism vs. 300 for abilitism: therefore people use ableism more frequently.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Women's Interagency HIV Study

Thank you for rating this article, which was one of my first on WP. Bearian (talk) 22:59, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poliomyelitis

I fully agree with your assessment that the Poliomyelitis article has a high importance. I stated this when it was a candidate for Feature Article (Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Poliomyelitis). --Dan Dassow (talk) 23:42, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your note, Dan Dassow. I've assessed a couple of hundred articles in the last few days, and after a while I start wondering whether my notions of importance line up at all with other people's. (Of course, when I get one wrong, then I hope someone will fix it!) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:48, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The importance of an article can be very subjective. Some questions you should consider when assigning importance include: Who is the audience of the article? Is the article of general interest or of interest to a select group of people? If the article were to be removed, would it be missed by a significant number of people? How would you defend your position if asked? Could you describe in a short sentence or two why you have assign a certain level of importance?

With regard to the Poliomyelitis article I consider it important since I have been personally affected. Would someone under forty years old who lives in a country not affected by polio consider it as important? I would suspect not unless they understood the historical significance of polio and how the development of the polio vaccine lead to other advancements in medicine. --Dan Dassow (talk) 09:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging articles

Hi,

I removed the merge tags for vascular access steal syndrome and steal syndrome -- explanation is to be found on talk:steal syndrome.

With regard to merging I have two points that you may want to consider:

1. the merge tags should point to the same talk page -- see WP:Merge, specifically WP:Merge#Proposing_a_merger.
2. it is a courtesy to start the discussion when you propose a merge, i.e. why do you think a merge is warranted? What may speak against it? (It may not be evident why the merge is proposed.) Again, please refer to WP:Merge.

Thanks, Nephron  T|C 17:01, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Nephron. I tagged those articles in the middle of an assessment run. I must have gotten distracted before I finished setting up a unified discussion. I apologize for the confusion. (I think your idea of turning steal syndrome into a normal disambiguation page is a good one.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of medical cat class

Thanks for bringing the lack of a medical cat class to my attention. I'll be interested to see whether or not this is made more consistent with other cat classes. On a separate note, I was wondering who in the world you were (i.e., someone I already knew but under some other name) because of your remark about the addictive behavior until it occurred to me: I'd removed the busy tag from my talk page but not from my user page. That's fixed now. Anyway, that is a ridiculous number of unclassed medical articles that seriously need some organization. Doczilla (talk) 06:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Well done on sorting out pulmonary hypertension. I was watching the edits and made a mental note to copyedit it back into shape when the anons were finished. You got there first :-) JFW | T@lk 22:52, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I have only a very basic knowledge of that area, and I'm kind of relieved to know that I didn't screw it up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd also like to say thanks, this for your editing on the Algolagnia page (some of what you may have done I may not have noticed as I can't remember exactly what the section you edited was like prior to your editing, and being a new user I don't know how to find this out - yet (I'm getting there though, slowly but surely!)) (but thanks anyway for the bit that I did notice!).

It is important to me that people get their facts straight on all issues, but it is even more important to me for personal reasons that algolagnia is better understood (yes I am an algolagniac - not that you asked, but I am offering this information because I now finally know that I do not have to be ashamed of my algolagnia, like I was for many years, and it is with the help of sites like Wikipedia - and their editors - who have helped me realise that I have no reason to be ashamed of it). Sorry if I'm ranting on, I have a tendency to do that, if I do it again just politely tell me to shut up. So thanks for your edit of the page, and I hope you are well. --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 15:52, 14 December 2007 (UTC) By the way, I know I've probably used too many italics in all of what I've just written here, but I'm just learning editing at the moment so am trying out new skills.

Actually, all I did on that article was to tag one sentence as needing a source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:29, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, I have now realised that, but I am glad you did that because I can now look into citing the source myself, when I have time to look into it. (I presume I can add the source myself? Yes, I know I can - I've just got to find the time to look into it, having not researched paraphilias that much myself, only insofar as that I know algolagnia is NOT one). --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 11:27, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Art therapy

There's a category Category:Martial arts therapy. There needs to be Category:Art therapy, which doesn't exist at the moment. Tyrenius (talk) 13:20, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with Tyrenius above, that there needs to be something on Art Therapy. I used to have Art Therapy myself - for issues I need not mention here - and I agree that there needs to be a category for it. --Sweet algolagnia (talk) 16:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hello

Hello sir, if theres any way you could remove that dubious remark on "mainsreaming in education" for a week that would be great. I revised that section for my freshman college writting class and my teacher will be grading that soon. Afterwards, I could care less if the claim is there...in fact I will revise it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.28.241.183 (talk) 16:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

No deal. If you want a good grade, then you find a good source. I refuse to be complicit in trying to pull the wool over your teacher's eyes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] December 2007

I am totally confused by this remark. I cut and pasted a slightly more accurate description of Wyndzen's issues -- including a direct quote from her letter, instead of the mangled paraphrase that was on that page, and a source that actually contains a functional link instead of the nonfunctional APA link that was previously used -- from one of the other related pages. Are you perhaps wrongly blaming me for the billion edits that someone else made earlier? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry, your edit was valid and a vast improvement. I don't know what went wrong, please accept my apologies. I have removed the warning from your talkpage as it was completely uncalled for. Lilac Soul ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 22:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD nomination of Germanic New Medicine

An article that you have been involved in editing, Germanic New Medicine, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Germanic New Medicine. Thank you. --Homer Landskirty (talk) 19:24, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

For all your hard assessment work, well done! --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 01:54, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hydropenia & dehydration

In a medical context I've never heard anyone say "hydropenia" and when I've heard the word "dehydration" I've often heard my teachers say "... don't use that word."

To answer the question: I'd say they are really the same thing --but both are crap terms from a medical perspective.

It is more informative to talk about intravascular volume and sodium balance (hyponatremia and hypernatremia). Intravascular volume is a lot more important than (water) volume itself.

By "dehydration", most people mean total body water deficient -- but it can also refer to "low intravascular volume". Physiologically, low intravascular volume (which can manifest with low OR high total body water) and total body water deficient often manifest the same way --if you're looking at the vitals (hypotension and tachycardia -- in the extreme cardiovascular collapse)-- but the causes are quite different. Nephron  T|C 09:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WPMED tag

I'm not sure why you removed the Medicine Project tag? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, just realized it had been changed to a redirect. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rhabdomyolysis

Thanks for your contribution to the Rhabdomyolysis article, your addition of 'Signs & Symptoms' is useful information. Cyclonenim (talk) 17:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Using PMID

I think using PMIDs by themselves as references (as you did on hypocholesterolemia[3]) is probably not ideal. The quickest way to convert a PMID into a full reference is with Diberri's citation tool. JFW | T@lk 07:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you're right about the non-idealness of a PMID for a reference, and I will bookmark the citation tool (and fix the ref on the page, if you haven't already). I'm also not certain that the ref itself is the ideal ref. There are a lot of possible sources for that information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Autogynephilia

I will give it a try. You do agree though that what that annon wrote was not wikipedia matterial but more of a self promotion for their little theory. --Hfarmer (talk) 19:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I've repaired at least most of it already. Actually, I have no opinion of the anon's edits; I didn't look at them. I just noticed that the awkward "not just based on the emotions of transwomen" sentence had mysteriously reappeared. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Please tell us more about yourself

Editors of medical articles like to know the area and level of education of their fellow editors. We also want to hear about your personal biases; disclosure is important in the medical literature. In my opinion, your personal profile is too short to be useful. Emmanuelm (talk) 15:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you are correct, Emmanuelm. WP:COI is the only relevant policy, and unless you have a genuine concern that this editor has an actual conflict of interest she is at liberty to reveal whatever she pleases. Wikipedia is not "medical literature" - it is a general purpose encyclopedia. JFW | T@lk 07:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Using case reports

Thanks for your sourcing of rhabdomyolysis. It is useful to have more sources than just the general review to support this section. However, I'm not sure if we should be using case reports as sources unless absolutely necessary; this is largely because case reports are open to numerous confounders, and are frequently disproven in later research. Let me know what you think. Obviously there are exceptions to this - I can think of at least one example.

The WP:MCOTW on rhabdomyolysis runs until next week. It seems nobody apart from us is paying any attention to the article. Have a look on Talk:Rhabdomyolysis where I have listed some useful sources (although CritCare2005, the Vanholder article and the AFP article should be sufficient for most sections). JFW | T@lk 07:28, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you in general, but I have some reservations in practice. This is a rare condition: About 1 in 5000 people each year. There are dozens of potential causes, and direct effects from drugs of abuse are among the least likely causes. Statistically sound reviews basically aren't available. For example, a search on PubMed shows exactly four articles about rhabdomyolysis related to marijuana, and at least one of those is a physical trauma caused by sleeping while stoned, and another article is actually about MDMA-class drugs instead of marijuana.

We could cite a secondary source that names marijuana as a cause with no further information, but I suspect that all such secondary sources are relying (perhaps inappropriately) on the same three case reports. My thinking is that if the evidence is weak, we should at least provide the weak evidence so the (educated) reader can consider the strength of the evidence.

Of course, when we can find stronger evidence, then that's definitely what we should use. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Uhhh, I think the reviews presently listed as main sources have fairly comprehensive lists of toxic causes of rhabdomyolysis. As you have noted, initial case reports may later be shown to be erroneous - it wasn't the skunk causing the rhabdo, but the fact that someone was "down & out". What the reviews do is elevate a case report in reliability - reviews are generally produced by experts in the field who filter out the less plausible causes. JFW | T@lk 06:45, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External links

Well done for weeding out "support groups" from several medical articles. But beware, sometimes people get really passionate about "their" links, as recently seen on Talk:Devic's disease; some don't hesitate to become rather abusive. If you get stuck, feel free to involve other editors. JFW | T@lk 06:45, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I meant to post a warning for the WPMED group. I'm actually watching very few of these articles, so I'm not sure that I'll notice any reversions. Perhaps I should surf through the list again tomorrow and see what's happened. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:51, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Helminthic therapy

Regarding your edits in this vein to the Helminthic therapy page:FQ1513 (talk) 22:13, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is littered with references to commercial products. This is a rare and valuable therapy, possibly, for those interested. I listed both of the only providers of this therapy so readers can go off and learn more. I am not favoring any one provider.

For instance, if this policy was followed to the letter drugs should only be listed by their chemical names, not their trade names. Think of infliximab for instance, or Humira.

So, following that reasoning would it be ok to list the providers by name, as with the drugs, just not provide a link to their sites?

Where one draws the line seems rather arbitrary. As to the links to the support groups, why the hell not? This is a source of information, why not link to discussion groups on this topic for people who want to learn more? Instead I could just write that Yahoo contains a group devoted to the subject if one wants to do more research, but not include the link?

If we are not allowed to list businesses or products should I devote the next year to deleting references to product names from Wikipedia? Will you?

Well, if you take a look at my contributions, you'll see that I've already deleted more than a hundred inappropriate links this month, so I'm clearly already involved in spam-removal on Wikipedia. If you'd like to undertake that task as well, then I encourage you to read the entire external links policy and also to connect with the group that deals with spam.

Even if you don't want to help with this project, I encourage you to read the external links policy. I am convinced that it will answer your questions and ease your concerns about arbitrariness. Sometimes commercial sites are appropriate. Articles about a large business often link to the main page of the corporate website, for example. With medical treatments in particular, external links to a commercial website often have bona fide encyclopedic content, including history, safety information, approved indications and so forth. What you won't find at the Humira website is something that says click here to pay nearly $4,000 for helminthic therapy in an underregulated clinic in Mexico -- which is exactly what I found on the HT page, and why I deleted that link. Please note that the remaining two links are links that I didn't even look at, and that further review may justify their removal, too.

FQ1513 (talk) 00:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)Actually the autoimmunetherapies site and the ovamed site do include a lot of encyclopedic content and the link you removed did not go directly to "click here to pay nearly $4,000 for helminthic therapy in an underregulated clinic in Mexico" So, on the basis of your reasoning the link was valid. It works just like the link to the producer and marketer of Humira, for instance. AS well he Helminthic therapy page is clear throughout, as are the sites I had linked to, that this is an experimental treatment.

It's not comparable. There's not a single page on the entire Humira website that will let you pay for anything. By contrast, the entire point behind the AutoimmuneTherapies.com website is to convince desperate patients that HT is worth $4,000 and a trip to Mexico.

The question you need to answer is this: What noncommercial value does this website provide that can't be reasonably included in the article? It's best to have information directly in the article, unless (like the Humira website) there's so much detailed information that it's not appropriate to include all of it. Can you identify any facts on this website that you think are valuable, but you really think are not appropriate to include in the actual article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

As for support groups: I don't know why the policy was set up that way. I just know that it is. You can read Talk:Devic's disease for some information, or just go directly to the external links policy and read the ban on "Links to social networking sites (such as MySpace), discussion forums/groups (such as Yahoo! Groups) or USENET" for yourself. I believe that it's #11 on the list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That all makes sense, thanks for the clarification. Since my objective in working so hard on the helminthic therapy page is to make information accessible to people researching it would it be appropriate to provide links to the science pages hosted by Ovamed and Autoimmune Therapies? By the way, a single infusion of Humira or Tsybari or whatever often costs $4K, per month. They have a lot of it.FQ1513 (talk) 23:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Neither of those websites are ideal, because the websites exist to sell the product, and that means that the owners have no incentive to provide information which might be unfavorable. However, you might be able to get specific pages to squeak through. You'd be much better off using their information to find reputable sources to build the actual article, though. Wikipedia articles don't have to have any external links, after all.

(The editors at WP:V or WP:EL might be able to give you a more reliable answer, and you could certainly post a question on the policy talk pages.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rhabdo

Well done on the rhabdo page. I was wondering where those epidemiology edits and the collapsed building picture had come from!

I need to stop now, but if the mood strikes you there are still "pathophysiology" and "treatment" sections to write. There are no Cochrane reviews to base the "treatment" section on. For the pathophysiology section I was going to rely largely on Vanholder et al. They also give a good bunch of advice for real-life situations (like earthquakes) that should probably be included. JFW | T@lk 23:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd appreciate if you could review the end result, and adjust the {{WPMED}} status accordingly. JFW | T@lk 23:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, JFW. I've upgraded it to B class. I like the way this article has shaped up, and I think it will clear a GA review easily. Would you like me to nominate it?

As for an FA review (which I know very little about), it may qualify or it may be very close. From reading the policy page, we might have to rephrase the bullet points under "Causes" to be grammatically parallel. FA reviewers might also want something more said about prognosis (although I'm not sure what to add: it just looks a little bare). Perhaps the lead could have a second paragraph that explains why it's important (e.g., it's a potentially deadly condition that can be difficult and expensive to treat).

I did some minor copyediting just now; please check my changes. Can you rephrase the Electrolytes subsection to have three shorter sentences instead of one short and one long sentence? I'd like a sentence that starts "Calcium levels initially tend to be low because..." (all the calcium got kidnapped by the phosphate), followed by a separate sentence about the calcium reappearing. I think it will be easier to parse that way, but I wasn't confident that it would be accurate if I did it myself.

Thanks again for your significant efforts on this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fetal Pain

(crossed posted on my talk page)

I completely agree that not every study should be included, and that a general summary should suffice. Please be aware that I deleted a sentence that did not have scientific merit. I have no interest in the political debate. The sentence I deleted said this: "Early in development, from about 12-18 weeks gestation, there is a complete link from the periphery to the thalamus in the brain, and the fetus shows clear evidence of defensive reactions against tissue damage including hormonal and hemodynamic responses."

This sentence insinuates that fetal pain can occur in the 12th week, which is clearly editorializing because the study cited concludes: "Pain is an emotional and psychological experience that requires conscious recognition of a noxious stimulus. Consequently, the capacity for conscious perception of pain can arise only after thalamocortical pathways begin to function, which may occur in the third trimester around 29 to 30 weeks’ gestational age…" --IronAngelAlice (talk) 18:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

(cross posted on my talk page)

The assertion that "Pain is an emotional and psychological experience that requires conscious recognition of a noxious stimulus" is a POV -- a point of view endorsed by many researchers, but still a point of view. Not everyone has that POV. I think it would be better to rephrase the sentence to indicate the undisputed facts: a fetus at 12-18 weeks gestation has a certain level of neurological development and some verified physical responses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

However it is not my POV. It is an expert POV backed up by research. That's called science (or at least scientific discourse). --IronAngelAlice (talk) 19:12, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pain and nociception

Hi,

You'd left me a message about my questions on Pain and nociception. I think basically it needs a proofread, culling of OR and problematic claims, addition of sources and just a general look over by someone who is knowledgeable. When the question was raised, the two big contributors to the page had hit their limit of knowledge. I suppose my concerns still remain, but they're ongoing and can't really be addressed with a single response. Sorry! WLU (talk) 23:31, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I took your advice and nominated P&N on the medcollab page, thanks for the suggestion. WLU (talk) 20:14, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds great. I'll go vote for it. It may take a while to bubble up to the top of the list, but I think the outcome may be what we want. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Barnstar for good works

I could not help noticing your highly prolific and welcome presence over the last few months. I can only presume you have a medical/paramedical background ? If so, why not add yourself to list of Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Participants and you can add the userbox template {{User WPMed}}:

I'm sure that at your current level of participation you are heading for an Admin nomination (if you would so wish), although I think you will first need rather wider experience (article/talk space edit numbers are fine), i.e. in the more back-of-office administration (with lower case "a") such as various deletions (XfD), dealing with conflicts (which sooner or later will occur) and, perhaps, Admin noticeboard WP:AN/I. If there are any particular queries you have on extending your current activities (or the above), then do ask :-) I note you have not activated your "E-mail this user" feature, but mine is active if you wish a more private discussion...

PS feel free to copy & paste your well deserved barnstar to your userpage :-) David Ruben ^Talk 13:45, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind note. I have enjoyed most of the last few months, and in a couple of weeks I hope to have accomplished a major goal: getting all of the WPMED articles assessed for at least one parameter.

I don't really have any interest in being an administrator. Computers do not always seem deterministic when I'm in the room, and I'd rather not have the ability to screw up anything irreversibly. It is kind of you to suggest it, though. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:43, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Unknown etiology

These horrible lists (e.g. List of syndromes and diseases with unknown etiologies‎) are probably going to survive AFD. Why people want to keep those lists is beyond me. In the meantime, I'm not sure of the merits of Category:Ailments of unknown etiology. For one thing, it needs to be renamed ("ailments" is a 19th century nonspecific and nonencyclopedic term), and I'm not sure about the place of articles where there are several possible etiologies but no definitive ones. JFW | T@lk 23:51, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User:Jessica Liao

I'm afraid your suspicion is correct. The user had 7 similarities with Jessica's other socks:

1. Attention to celebrities

2. Editing about New York area schools

3. Editing alternative education articles with a unique POV regarding her take on definitions of terms

4. Starting slowly with uncontroversial edits, but gradually becoming bolder and more disruptive

5. Filling user page with many "cheery" userboxes, making a myspace-esque mess

6. Username that is a backwards-spelled noun

7. (and this is the kicker) the user re-created Alternative Learning Program which had originally been created by another of Jessica's socks, deleted, created again by another sock, deleted, and created again by this one...

That's good enough for me. Cheers! --Bradeos Graphon Βραδέως Γράφων (talk) 21:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. I briefly restored Alternative Learning Program and put it on my watchlist. I don't think you can watchlist a redlink, and I don't want to leave it up for too long. I have a few of her other favorite articles there, Great Neck, New York, etc. --Bradeos Graphon Βραδέως Γράφων (talk) 00:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

It ought to be possible to add a redlink to your watchlist by editing the raw watchlist (follow the link to Special:Watchlist/raw). If a previous version was on your watchlist, then it ought to still be there (you ought to see the redlink at Special:Watchlist/edit). Pete.Hurd (talk) 04:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Barnstar of Diligence

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		This Barnstar of Diligence is awarded to WhatamIdoing for swift recognition of one of Wikipedia's chronic puppetmasters, likely saving us all much potential floor scrubbing in the process! Bradeos Graphon Βραδέως Γράφων (talk) 21:18, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good Samaritan Hospital (Suffern)

Thanks for fixing the tags relative to Project:Medicine for Good Samaritan Hospital (Suffern). I'm not familiar with listing articles by project yet and tagged it as I did hoping someone would come along and help, so thanks! Travellingcari (talk) 04:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I was happy to do it. Assessing WPMED projects is my 'thing' at the moment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:50, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WPMED tags

Hi. Since {{WPMED}} is scripted to place articles into Cat:Unassessed-Class medicine articles and Cat:Unknown-importance medicine articles whether or not there are class and importance parameters, I don't think it is absolutely necessary to include these. The WP 1.0 Bot uses the categories for assessments, and not the template itself. However, per your request, I will add the empty parameters from now on. --Scott Alter 20:56, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rhabdo etc

Hey, I forgot to notify you that I've put rhabdomyolysis up for peer review. I'd hope you could look at the final product and see if there are any major (or even minor) deficiencies. I'm quite keen to have this baby up as a good article and with some luck even as a featured article.

Oh, and before I forget, Posturewriter (talk · contribs) has been working on Da Costa's syndrome. Presently I'm staying well clear of this topic (at least not without Kevlar underwear and a good dose of somesortofazepam), but I thought you'd like to know. JFW | T@lk 22:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I saw the peer review note on WPMED. I didn't know if it would be polite for me to be involved in the peer review process, since you named me as a recent editor. Basically, I think you should submit it for GA as soon as convenient. I think that GA is a given; it's a really good article.

I've been watching Da Costa's syndrome. I don't know what to do about it. I guess if you've got a hammer, then the whole world... What I really don't understand is why he's so determined that this needs to be in Wikipedia. He's already got his own website; why doesn't he post his story there? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Dude, I've edited rhabdomyolysis a lot since you make your last edit. Those edits need your close scrutiny - you are the most qualified because you worked on the article and are therefore up-to-date with the sources I cited. I don't think having worked on an article excludes you from commenting at WP:PR, which is pretty informal anyway.

Regarding Posturewriter... You are underestimating the appeal of Wikipedia as a promotional tool. If staffers from Congress and the Dutch Royal Family can remove information that is compromising to their bosses, then what about those who have interesting views and want the world to know about them (and buy their books)? JFW | T@lk 07:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I've sanity-checked every edit to Rhabdo since it was promoted to MCOTW. The only recent change that I even slightly disagreed with was when "...may lead to the development of a state called disseminated intravascular coagulation" (that's the current revision) got so wordy. If it seems okay to you, I'd reduce it to "...may lead to disseminated intravascular coagulation." I've also wondered whether the average reader would benefit from a tiny bit of information about DIC. Perhaps it should become "...may lead to disseminated intravascular coagulation, which can be fatal" or something like that?

Now that I can see my computer screen again, I've got 28 articles to assess (unless some nice person has added to my list in the last fifteen hours). Then perhaps I can figure out the official peer review system (if there is one). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

I've re-read the article and posted my latest thoughts to this page. I also asked my husband (who is not properly considered a science geek) to read through it; he "thought it looked fine." WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:32, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] cognitive reserve vs loss of memory

[Thanks for your note] I'm sure I had an idea at the time. I'm afraid I don't remember now though. Dlohcierekim Deleted?

[edit] Free-running sleep

Thanks for brutally paring Free-running sleep. (I've fixed it a bit more - hope you don't mind.)

Perhaps you dare tackle Polyphasic sleep as well? Similarly a fad - a more dangerous one, I think. I've been moving the fad stuff further down the page but am too cowardly to remove a lot (blush). (P.S. Don't know why it's called a Psychology article?) --Hordaland (talk) 03:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment on the free-running sleep article on my talkpage]. I've answered you there. --Hordaland (talk) 01:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Ooops, I mean I answered you on Talk:Free-running sleep. Hordaland (talk) 01:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment

		The Ass-S-mint award
		I, delldot, hereby award Whatamidoing with the Ass-S-mint award for their tremendous work assessing medical articles. delldot talk 19:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External linking guidelines

Juds/SOMPeople posting here. I hope that this is the best way to communicate with you. Thank you so much for the help and information regarding external links that you provided to the SOM article yesterday. It was only a few weeks ago that I finally realized that I could join here and possibly contribute something helpful. I did go to the policy page that you reference when I considered correcting the link that was placed by the article's original author. The three items, under links to avoid, that I used in making the decision to correct the original, broken link were 4, 7 and 11. 4:There isn't any intention to promote the website, just the information that has been gathered over the past eight years. 7:Joining is only required for posting. The information on the site is designed and dedicated to be openly and freely available to anyone. There are no fees involved. 11:I took this seriously when deciding to correct the link. Because the article was created over a year ago, I did not believe that it was unreasonable to think that it was an appropriate use of links. I understand that you need to delete the link. Again, much appreciation from someone with this disorder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SOMPeople (talk • contribs) 15:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your prompt and supportive reply. I would gladly follow any suggestions on how to make that link more compliant with the policies here. I will take your advice and create a detailed user page. However, I am not the author of the article, and therefore cannot follow your last suggestion. Juds

Hello WhatamIdoing, Thank you for your help. I have taken your suggestions and created my user page, as well as adding a note on the Talk Page for the article. Juds/SOMPeople SOMPeople (talk) 01:24, 13 February 2008 (UTC)