Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Veterinary medicine

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[edit] Template:Veterinary medicine overhaul

I've overhauled Template:Veterinary medicine (formerly {{Veterinary Practitioners}}) to include all the related "See also" links, from various veterinary articles. Please feel free to correct/improve anything in it (ordering, subheaders, additions, etc), and add it to appropriate articles. I've added that and the other template I saw to the project page. --Quiddity 05:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Getting started

Thanks, Quiddity, for getting this project moving. I'll probably start tomorrow with tagging relevant articles with {{WikiProject Veterinary medicine}} in order to hopefully get some more people interested. If anybody knows anything else that needs to be done, as far as housekeeping, please mention it here. --Joelmills 02:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

When I last checked things to do with Veterinary medicine, and vet colleges last year - there was a sense of severe imbalance of quality of the general lead in articles - and it seemed to me very ad hoc (ie not systematic) material on the profession. It might have changed - but if this project can actually standardise and improve the general quality - great!
(1) While I admire those who can sustain brevity/conciseness - I wonder whether the goals/scope could play out a bit more the projects aim to improve quality and co-ordinate the articles a bit more?
(2) I think a systematic trawling of vet college websites, and vet assocations web sites for linking to resources here would be very good
(3) Vet science history needs to be developed - anyone with any clues? I belong to the australian group, but interested if there are others interested in this SatuSuro 03:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
You're right, the description of the project is written at this point more geared toward the medical articles, as opposed to the articles about veterinary medicine. That needs to change. Looking at articles in Category:Veterinary schools, Category:Veterinary professions, and Category:Veterinary medicine gives a good idea of what needs improvement.
Right now I'm trying to compile a list of what articles currently exist that are covered by this project (and in the case of diseases what species are covered by these articles), and what subjects are missing (a lot, some important). History of veterinary medicine should top that list.
The other thing I would like to bring up is the current organization of the health articles. Right now they exist in Category:Animal diseases (a catch-all category), Category:Bird diseases, Category:Poultry diseases, Category:Bovine diseases, Category:Cat health (most of which should be moved to Category:Cat diseases), Category:Horse health (many of which need to be moved to Category:Horse diseases), Category:Dog health (most of which should be moved to a new category, Category:Dog diseases), Category:Fish diseases, Category:Sheep and goats diseases, and Category:Swine diseases. So they are grouped by species. It may be a good idea to create new categories, e.g. Category:Veterinary oncology, Category:Veterinary parasitology, etc., to organize by topic. --Joelmills 17:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
If we have a good category tree - with the project as a co-ordinating point - half the battle of the mess of chaotic animal health and animal material throughout wikipedia would be under some sort of reasonable umbrella - one small problem will be where dog health (or any other animal) could belong to all of the new cats - we have to be very careful of either WP:Overcategorization or any other major structural issues where cat overlap (sorry I deal it categories so much I call them cats - not a very good idea at this project) occurs SatuSuro 03:47, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that we could stick to two veterinary medicine-specific categories, namely one for species and one for disease type (e.g. Category:Veterinary dermatology). One category like this already exists, Category:Types of animal cancers, but it should probably be renamed. I'll work on an existing category tree. --Joelmills 13:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Veterinary Medicine/Category tree. Incidentally, currently all of the disease and health articles are tagged with the project template (I think). Are we also tagging articles on veterinary schools, organizations, and veterinarians? --Joelmills 16:05, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Freemartin

Hi,

If anyone has the appropriate veterinary medicine textbooks, please check out the account of freemartin. I started the article from materials in a derivative source, which doesn't make a very good citation, so citations would also be appreciated. P0M 04:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to get you started, the Merck Veterinary Manual has a good description of the anatomy of the freemartin. --Joelmills 01:33, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Veterinary medicine article lists

I've been working on tracking down and tagging appropriate articles, and I've made a list of existing articles and a list of missing articles by disease type. Right now I'm working on further organizing those, indicating problems such as unreferenced articles, and highlighting the more important missing diseases. The first one is finished, User:Joelmills/Vet med bacteria and bacterial diseases, so take a look and tell me what you think. When these lists are finished, the pages can be grouped by needing references or cleanup or whatever. These lists also give some indication of how populated new categories would be that are organized by disease type (see next topic). --Joelmills 00:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Also see User:Joelmills/Vet med viruses and viral diseases. --Joelmills 00:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, the complete list is done and can be viewed by going through Wikipedia:WikiProject Veterinary medicine/Articles. All vet med articles are grouped by subject, I've indicated which need refs or wikifying, and I've also listed important missing articles. New articles should be added to these lists, as well any requested articles. Please peruse any subject that you are familiar with to see if I missed anything. --Joelmills 02:24, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

I would like to bring this up again. As far as the existing categories go (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Veterinary Medicine/Category tree) I would propose two changes:

  1. Category:Dog diseases should be split off as a subcategory of Category:Dog health. You can see that the dog health category is considerably bigger than any of the other health categories.
  2. If a disease is described in its entirety in an article about the pathogen (virus, bacteria, whatever), then that article should remain under that species' disease category. However, if there are separate articles for the pathogen and the disease, then the disease should remain under that species' disease category, and the pathogen should be put into a new category, Category:Veterinary pathogens. For example, Feline calicivirus is about the virus and also has the disease information (there is no article for Feline calicivirus infection), so it remains in Category:Cat diseases. But Jaagsiekte Sheep Retrovirus is about the virus and Jaagsiekte is about the disease, so Jaagsiekte remains in Category:Sheep and goats diseases and Jaagsiekte Sheep Retrovirus goes in Category:Veterinary pathogens.

Category:Animal diseases should be reserved for diseases that occur in species without their own disease category (e.g. Myxomatosis occurs in rabbits), and for diseases that cover several species, like Lymphoma in animals.

Lastly, here are the categories I would propose creating to cover veterinary medicine by branch of medicine (I'm only listing categories that would be well-populated, the others can come later):

We may want to refrain from putting human medicine articles in these categories when there is only a small amount of information about animals in them, for example Legg-Calvé-Perthes syndrome, to avoid overcategorization. The exception would probably be veterinary toxicology, which fits more naturally into the main articles, in my opinion. --Joelmills 18:32, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment

I believe the banner and project are now set up for assessments. Let me know if anything is wrong, of course, but I think it should work now. John Carter 18:19, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

In respect to this, I think all the appropriate articles are now tagged with the project banner. --Joelmills 03:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Looks like roughly 480 articles, if anyone is interested. --Joelmills 03:29, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Just to give an update on the current situation with tagged articles showing up in the correct categories, we're still seeing about 109 articles in Category:WikiProject Veterinary medicine articles, about 25% of what should be there. In Category:Unassessed Veterinary medicine articles, which is almost all of them, there are 261, a little more than half of what should be there. As an experiment, I chose a tagged article that wasn't in either one, Talk:Canine minute virus, and classed it as a stub of low importance. It now shows up in the stub class and low importance categories, but not in the main article category. Also, the importance rating does not show up in the banner on the talk page, nor does the comment I left, although the comment does appear on the other two banners on the page.
Another experiment: I took an article that was in the main article category and classed it. It was removed from that category and placed in the appropriate stub-class category. Is that what is supposed to happen? --Joelmills 20:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah, regarding the importance rating, I see from the template syntax that it's not set up to display the importance, and instead of displaying comments it just links to the comments page. --Joelmills 20:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, I found the missing articles. All the ones in Category:Veterinary medicine articles by quality and subcategories (about 263 or so) plus the ones in Category:WikiProject Veterinary medicine (216), adds up to 480 articles, which is around what I estimated. There are no crossovers that I can tell. So why aren't the articles in Category:WikiProject Veterinary medicine showing up in Category:WikiProject Veterinary medicine articles instead? It has nothing to do with when the banner was added, that I can tell. --Joelmills 21:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Last update (I hope): looks like it's been fixed. Category:WikiProject Veterinary medicine now just contains a few non-mainspace pages, and Category:Unassessed Veterinary medicine articles now contains 471 articles. Not sure what happened. Oddly, Category:WikiProject Veterinary medicine articles still contains 107 articles, all of which are also in the unassessed category, but one step at a time I guess. --Joelmills 03:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] individual article placement

As the banner is now structured, each of the articles, etc., tagged with the project banner is placed individually in the Category:WikiProject Veterinary medicine articles. This was done by me without consultation with the members of the project. I am now requesting input from the rest of you in whether this is the correct way to proceed. Having everything placed in such a category makes it much easier to create an article list. The list of Wikipedia:WikiProject Lutheranism/Articles was assembled using this method. Alternately, the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Saints/Articles does not have this function, which tends to make upkeep of that list rather more of a difficulty. This project, at least right now, however, does not have an article list quite that size yet. I would welcome input from the rest of you as to which category, if any, you think should be used as the "default" category for the project. John Carter 14:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The above very reasonable proposition was made - which basically includes 'all categories and articles in the same major project category. In other projects that I have worked with - we separate the items that are not assessable from those that are - which means that lists and sub-categories are in a separate non assessable category - separate from the main article category - which includes articles that are assessable only. It up to others have input - as my preferences is to separate out for assessment and non assessment purposes. SatuSuro 14:27, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
A centralized list makes sense, with everything on one page, for looking for related changes. I also have it organized by branch of medicine at Wikipedia:WikiProject Veterinary medicine/Articles in order to see what may be under represented, and to list important missing articles. Also, right now Category:WikiProject Veterinary medicine articles is only showing about 110 articles. My rough count from the article list I made is about 450 tagged articles. Oddly, when I counted the "what links here" to the actual project template, I came up with about 500, including categories. However, as I've mentioned before, I assume it's just server lag. --Joelmills 15:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
It looks like we are approaching this from three different directions, but we all have the same goal in mind: a list that is easy to access. If there are a few NA's in the mix, it probably won't hurt anything. The list I originally made is too complicated for a simple look at what needs to be assessed, but I think it's helpful for seeing what is out there for different branches of medicine, what species those articles cover and need to cover, and what articles are missing. So I suggest having the centralized list that Carter proposed as the main article list, and have my attempt at organization as a place for article requests and such. --Joelmills 15:21, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Fine - if all agree and the template works ok - we should be up and running with tags for articles - and categories and lists with Class=NA - and they will all co-exist in the main Category:WikiProject Veterinary medicine articles - time to break out! (apologies if i held anything up there) SatuSuro 15:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions on assessments

OK, first, thanks in advance for your patience with me, as I've never done the whole assessment thing before. I've read Wikipedia:WikiProject Veterinary medicine/Assessment, and here are my questions:

  1. Are we just assessing quality, or are we assessing importance also?
  2. I find the distinctions between stub, start, and B class a little confusing. Obviously it's not just about length, but also about content and organization. So, am I correct about the following quality assessments? Canine parvovirus - B class, because it's missing images and needs more info on diagnosis and treatment. Canine distemper - Start, because it has some good content, but is poorly organized and too short. Dog heat stroke - Stub, because it frankly needs a lot of work and is basically all about treatment.
  3. Expanding on that last question, would the following articles be B class or start class? Collie eye anomaly, Corneal ulcers in animals, Canine transmissible venereal tumor.

Thanks. I'm willing to start assessing as soon as we have a fully populated Category:WikiProject Veterinary medicine articles, whenever that may be. --Joelmills 15:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

My answers, which probably won't be sufficient:
  • 1) Importance is useful for the project. It is however only supposed to refer to a given articles importance to the project. It is more or less optional to do such importance assessments, although some projects do like to assess at least the articles they consider Top or High importance as such.
  • 2) Generally, I tend to think that only articles that have been granted, or recently lost, GA or FA status should be eligible for A status, and GA and FA are exclusively for articles that have received such status externally. Regarding your specific questions, I agree with the two original assessments based on the reasons given. Regarding the last four, acknowledging that no assessment is necessarily absolute, and that these are just as it were indications of current development, I would say B, B, and B, as they all (at least so far as I can see) at least quickly discuss all the major subjects.
I'll try to help as soon as I finish the saints article list update. Feel free to post any that you're not sure of on the assessments page and I'll give you what help I can there. John Carter 16:07, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, but just to be clear, did you mean you agree with the first three original assessments, and would class the last three as B, B, and B? Because I assume you wouldn't class dog heat stroke as B. --Joelmills 16:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Your right, I miscounted and said four when it was only three. Dog heat stroke was one where I agreed with your original opinion. It clearly lacks some of the basic information to understand the subject, like info on what heat stroke actually is. A simple link to Hyperthermia would probably suffice there, though, with maybe a one sentence description of it. That situation also calls to mind the idea that we try not to duplicate info in multiple articles. So, if you see anything like that, it might be asked to be removed if it is included in the more "basic" article on the subject. John Carter 16:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, we definitely don't want to just duplicate human articles to make them about vet med. In the case of heat stroke, however, hyperthermia is almost completely lacking in info about the effects on the body, and about 80 percent of it is dedicated to symptoms, treatment, and prevention, most of which is completely different for dogs, so I think a separate article is warranted. I am thinking of renaming it to Canine heat stroke, because putting two nouns together like dog and heat stroke just sounds bad. And I've learned from experience that putting veterinary medical information in a human medicine article can lead to complaints from some users. --Joelmills 16:50, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for being unclear once again. What I was trying to suggest in my last comment was that a link to hyperthermis would probably be sufficient for a definition of what heat stroke was. I do agree that having a separate article relating to species-or-whatever-specific symptoms, treatments, et al. would be a good idea, particularly if they vary pronouncedly from the human version. John Carter 20:09, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP Vet Med talk page tag

When placing the WP Vet med tag on talk pages of categories - it (the tag) is replicated on the category page itself (self ref looping?)- ... do we need that? SatuSuro 12:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Logo

Have just uploaded a modification of Esclapius_stick.svg - in as Image:Image-Aesclapius Vet.jpg.

What do people think? Worth using? (Dlh-stablelights 09:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC))

Here's a smaller version (Dlh-stablelights 12:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC))

Image:Small-Aesclapius Vet.jpg.


How does it look reduced - can you do a scaled down - its in the squashing that will tell whether it looks ok SatuSuro 12:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I like it very much, but if it can be squashed a little, as SatuSuro says, it'll fit better in the template. I just plugged it into Template:WikiProject Veterinary medicine, and it made the banner a little taller than before. Definitely better than that photo that is there currently, though. --Joelmills 19:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Excellent if it can hold the detail while getting reduced - well done! SatuSuro 01:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There we go, seems to fit the template banner fine without stretching. If you're happy with it, I'll update the banner template. (Dlh-stablelights 09:31, 12 June 2007 (UTC))

I like it. On my screen at work it looks a little bit smudgy, though. Is it just me? --Joelmills 18:51, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I've uploaded it twice, and its fine running from my hard drive, but when it goes onto Wiki, there seem to be some compression artefacts - i.e. the background goes very slightly blue/grey, reducing the contrast. I don't seem to be able to clean it up. Its not much, but as you say, it is there. Dlh-stablelights 19:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it's still there at home, but it is mild. Honestly, about a month ago I tried to modify the rod of asclepius image to add a V to it, and I couldn't even come close to a good image. I would say let's use it for now, and if someone can improve it, fine. It's a vast improvement over what is there now (i.e. the squashed little photo of a veterinarian). --Joelmills 23:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I am not a vet guy, but I can do some graphic design. Would you like me to clean that up and make it better fit for the logo you guys need? KyNephi 21:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

That would be great, thanks. --Joelmills 01:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
The "V" at the bottom really makes the details of the "snake stick" hard to tell. I have a colorized version of that image, and if I remove the "V", it has a much better look to it. Is the "V" necessary? KyNephi 14:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Without the V it would just be the medical symbol. If the issue is that the image is too long, the V could be over the stick (or under it). --Joelmills 18:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so here are three images. I noticed on the Chemistry tag, when you click on the logo, it goes to the larger image. So below are three images; the larger one which I put the V, a shrunken image of that, and a closeup. They have transparent background, which will help out... Image:Esclapius-Vet-Stick.png Image:Shrunk-Esclapius-Vet-Stick.png Image:Closeup.png
The shrunken image and the closeup, you can choose which one to use for the tag (if any of it). Any suggestions? KyNephi 20:35, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the shrunken image, but would it be possible to lower the V a little? Thanks for all your hard work, by the way. --Joelmills 14:35, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Better?

Image:Esclapius-Vet-Stick02.png Image:Shrunk-Esclapius-Vet-Stick02.png
KyNephi 17:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that looks good. Let's see if anyone else has an opinion. --Joelmills 19:33, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey. I was playing around w/the chemical Wikiproject template, and I found out how they show a small image in the template that when you click on it, will go to the larger image. I played w/the template here, and here is the code you will want to do w/the BIG image I gave you so that it auto shrinks (instead of just using my already shrunken image).

[[Image:Esclapius-Vet-Stick02.png|25px|90px|Veterinary Medicine WikiProject]]

This is using my large image, but having wiki shrink it down for us.KyNephi 03:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stub for Immune Mediated Polygenicarthritis

I don't know what this is, but can anyone here stubify the mention of it at Beagle#Health, since Beagle is currently at WP:FAC ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

No problem - created a stub for it. I think "Polygenicarthritis" is a typo for "Polygenic arthritis" - certainly that's how we were taught it at vet school! - so thats how I've saved it. I personally don't know much about it, so I've done a fairly generic article for it so far.
Dlh-stablelights 16:38, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:42, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] surgical images

Hi, I just wanted to solicit some opinion from the project, especially from practicing veterinarians. Recently I failed the horse Gelding article for a variety of reasons. But one of issues I brought up (though not a reason for failing GA-status) was the usage of a pair of rather gruesome images of the gelding procedure itself. While they do serve an important function, and shouldn't be removed, I'm advocating a search for more tasteful images ala Open heart surgery or Brain surgery. What I am wondering is whether the actual procedures depicted in the images at hand were good, typical images of the process of horse gelding. To me, I can't imagine a livestock veterinarian performing a castration in a dirty barnyard setting. I wouldn't think Wikipedia should use examples of potentially dangerous amateur surgical procedures. VanTucky (talk) 18:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. That's an interesting point. My personal opinion is that the closeup photo is fine, since it is my experience that most geldings take place in the field rather than in a clinical setting (this is from 10 years ago). The other photo does make me cringe, mainly due to the lack of gloves. There is also a little ironic juxtaposition with the text, which says that with recumbent castration, "better asepsis (sterile environment) can be maintained". That particular photo is from Morocco, which may have a different way of doing things, although I would be willing to bet you could find a similar circumstance in the U.S. or Europe. Perhaps an equine vet could tell us what is typical and possibly supply a better image. However, I don't think you will get anything to compare to the images on the heart or brain surgery pages. That degree of surgical field isolation is rarely done for a surgery that does not include invasion of the abdomen, thorax, or brain, in veterinary medicine anyway. And there is no avoiding a big old testicle in the photo. --Joelmills 00:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thanks! VanTucky (talk) 00:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that free images are very hard to find, and yes, field castration is still very common in more places than not, though more often done in a "clean" grassy pasture than a "dirty barnyard." This is particularly true when you have a large ranch and many young horses to geld. Much less stress on everyone not to haul them all to the vet! And FYI, speaking of explicit, anyone check out Rocky mountain oysters? Mmmm! Montanabw(talk) 04:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Eh, not too bad. At least they're not being excavated from a bloody incision in a restrained mule. VanTucky (talk) 04:25, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Important missing veterinary articles, and some thoughts on categories (again)

I will hopefully be out of assessment hell after another week or so, so I have been giving some consideration to organization of the vet med articles in Wikipedia. Let me just dispense with the category discussion first by referring you to the Categories section above and saying that I would still like to have things organized like that. One member has already created Category:Veterinary Parasitology, which brought this all to mind again for me. One thing I do want to clarify is how we want to capitalize these categories. (i.e. Veterinary Parasitology or Veterinary parisitology, I personally prefer the latter).

Second, and more importantly, we need some main vet med related articles to point toward all these disease articles we have. I see these divided into two groups, one dedicated to veterinary specialties and one dedicated to the health of specific species.

As far as veterinary specialties, currently we have a mixed bag of articles, including ones dedicated to specialties like Veterinary surgery and Veterinary parasitology, and ones dedicated to specialists like Veterinary pathologist and Avian veterinarian. I think we should at least have an article for every major veterinary specialty that points to some of the most common things seen and treated by someone in that field of medicine.

As far as health articles for individual species, all we have right now is Dog health, which is in terrible shape. I'm going to make that my first priority. The way I envision it is to have for an article such as dog health or swine health or whichever, the following sections (not necessarily in this order): common vaccines, parasites, infectious diseases, skin diseases, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, GI diseases, other internal medicine diseases, orthopedic diseases, other diseases such as ophthalmology, neurology, dentistry, poisonings, etc., and public health risks (i.e. zoonoses). The fact that we don't even have an article discussing something as important as drug withdrawal times in food animals is pretty shocking.

Thoughts, anyone? --Joelmills 03:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I cannot choose but I agree with you at all. We should write categories like this:Veterinary parasitology not Veterinary Parasitology. This is used in other branches. Concerning the health articles for invidual species (dog health), I also propose to divided these articles into predefined sections. However, sections according to organ systems (skin diseases, GI diseases, Skeletal disease) would be probably more transparent. Each section should consists infectious diseases, parasites, functional disease, genetic diseases, cancers, diagnostic methods, treatment, surgical solutions, vaccine and prevention. Moreover, nutrition aspects should be mentioned for each species. Although I am not interested in nutrition af animals, these articles are really lacking on Wikipedia.--Flukeboy 09:10, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
Y'all may want to check out equine nutrition, which was awarded GA status. It may be a way to structure articles for other species. (Basically, one section going over the digestive system, one section on how the animal uses various feeds and nutrients, and one section that contains how-to considerations...). Hope this helps. Montanabw(talk) 02:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC) (and no, not joining here... I am already up to my ears on the horse breeds and horse training projects, you guys can have this one! (grin))

I'm finally starting the revisions over at dog health today, if anyone is interested in commenting on changes. --Joelmills 14:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions on a new article?

I created an article for capstar (Nitenpyram) and its "just getting started". Anyone here would like to add to it, or add your tag to it, feel free to do so. KyNephi 00:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you. --Joelmills 02:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I am very naive about chemistry and vet medicine. I know that the article is a stub, but would love to have any and all comments about what I (or others) could add to it to help create a good article about it. It is a great product, and I think that wiki deserves to have a good amount of information on it. KyNephi 21:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't know too much about the product, but I think it would be interesting to see what other uses it has other than as a flea treatment. Also, I would recommend linking to the nitenpyram article from the treatment sections of flea and cat flea (giving a brief description in those articles). --Joelmills 01:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed deletions (WP:PROD)

  • 18 September 2007 - expires 23 September
    • Arched legs (PROD by User:Montanabw ; PROD nominator states: "Article is an orphaned stub of an archaic term, describing--inaccurately--a condition of horse conformation now known as "buck-kneed"") --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Urethrostomy 13 August
Thanks for letting us know. I say go for it - it is seriously lacking in context. --Joelmills 03:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Beagle

Can anyone help with this issue at Beagle? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:19, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New articles

Just created (finally) Lavender Foal Syndrome and Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (non-human). As I am writing from my horse-sort-of-expert but veterinary layperson's understanding of both, would you veterinary medicine types take a glance, apply any tags or templates, etc.? Shoot me a message on my talk page if something needs to be fixed or if you have any questions/comments. Thanks! Montanabw(talk) 03:35, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strangles

Strangles currently says no vaccine is available. Does anyone here know what that is about? --Una Smith (talk) 14:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Beats me, other than lack of knowledge. I'd say go and fix it if you want, I certainly can verify that there is in fact a strangles vaccine, because I've been paying the vet annually for the intranasal thingy on my younger horses, still can't buy a vaccine to give it myself, though, unlike most other vaccines, Probably some interesting info to be had. Montanabw(talk) 05:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't know much about the strangles vaccine, but from what I understand the Intervet vaccine was withdrawn due to inefficacy in early 2007. I'm pretty sure the Pfizer vaccine (intramuscular) and the Fort Dodge vaccine (intranasal) are still available. I deleted the unavailable part from the article, but didn't replace it with anything up to date yet. --Joelmills (talk) 13:47, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Aha! Thanks for the brand name, Joelmills; that will help me find good quality information. My participation on Rotavirus has given me some ideas of what should be in veterinary infectious disease articles. The article is in desperate need of globalization, by the way. At least one intranasal vaccine is widely available in the US ... but what about the rest of the world? --Una Smith (talk) 18:46, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, all I have ever used is the intranasal. Or, to be precise, all my vet has ever used. One good source on strangles is here - Nov 2007 article in The Horse. Not a lot of detail on vaccines, but a number of links to other articles and a good overview of the basics. Hope this helps. Montanabw(talk) 19:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks but for medical subjects I recommend using the medical literature and government agencies (because vaccines are licensed drugs). A bunch of WikiProject Medicine editors, not just me, can help. --Una Smith (talk) 04:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I actually looked around on pubmed for any recent articles on strangles dealing with vaccines, but the only ones I found didn't even give an abstract. Decent veterinary medicine journal articles can be hard to come buy if you don't actually have a subscription. --Joelmills (talk) 00:07, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Um, does it make any difference that The Horse is the AAEP's official magazine and though of popular tone, the vast majority of its articles are written by veterinarians, including the extensive article on strangles in their November 2007 hardcopy issue? I'm with Joel, sometimes we are stuck with the best available sources. But whatever. Just trying to help. Montanabw(talk) 07:38, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah. Ideally, we want a peer reviewed journal article. After that I usually look for a well respected textbook (and I actually have a pretty good online resource for vet med textbooks, but I couldn't find anything recent enough to help us). After that I look at conference proceedings (again, no luck). I'll take a look at Montanabw's link today or tomorrow and most likely use it, unless I see some COI. I didn't think of government agencies - the USDA approves vet vaccines, so I'll check there also. --Joelmills (talk) 17:32, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 9th most view article

Here's an oddity, in 9th most viewed article on wikipedia in Feb was canine reproduction ! Current stats [1], I don't know if it's down to an internet viral or something but it is a huge number of views (almost 2,000,000) for a start class article! LeeVJ (talk) 22:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pectus Excavatum

Pectus excavatum is the current medical collaboration of the week, and has a section on its occurence in animals. Could someone from the WikiProject help us out with that area? Thanks! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 18:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Elizabethan collar

One dog in a picture is listed as having received a wound on his neck from a "grass seed". Surely this is a typo?--Filll (talk | wpc) 22:30, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily - take a look at foxtail (diaspore). --Joelmills (talk) 01:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
My fathers practice in the 50's could have been simply to remove grass seeds from the most unlikely parts of dog anatomy - both native and introduced grasses in some parts of australia travel significantly once they have entered - if only i had photos and cites its almost an article SatuSuro 02:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)