Talk:William Osler

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I think it would be a mistake to merge these two categories. At the same time the entry on the Osler residency needs to be re-written since at present its essentially just an account of Osler's life. The residency has thrived for almost 100 years after his death and produced countless leaders in American medicine and yet 99% of the Wikipedia entry focuses on rather mundane aspects of Osler's life, most of which predated the residency.

• Support. The article focusses on Osler's life. If the residency is important, it would be better to add a section in his biography.--Savisha 17:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I support merging these two pages.  Osler's advocacy of medical residency - as part of his philosophy of medical education and the need to listen to the patient - is an aspect of Osler's professional life and thus its well into a biographical article. David

[edit] Tecumseh

another source lists his birthplace as tecumseh, ontario.Toyokuni3 (talk) 05:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requested review

Thanks to Toyokuni3 for the opportunity to read this article! Great work so far. Some advice:

• The most important thing I see that the article needs is more references, especially inline citations for specific facts. My preference is to see at least one reference per paragraph (when I see one for the first or last sentence of a paragraph I assume the ref is endorsing the whole paragraph, so that's worth paying attention to). But at the least, every fact with a statistic, potentially controversial material, and all quotations need a reference.
• I think the lead should be expanded, see WP:LEAD for good ideas on how to improve it. It should be able to act as a summary that could be a stand-alone article. One trick that makes it easier for me is to include something from each section, kind of pull out the most important things from each one.
• Also, the lead should not mention things that aren't discussed in the rest of the article, so maybe there should either be some further explanation of his opinion of Avicenna or that should be removed.
• I would split the biography section, which is quite long, into subsections. Maybe "Early life", "Carreer", "Positions", "Contributions to medicine"... that type of thing.
• It's good to have full references rather than just hyperlinks. With articles in medical journals, it's super easy because of this amazing tool: just enter the pubmed ID (do a pubmed search for the article title or whatnot, and enter the PMID number found at the bottom of the abstract into the search bar. The tool creates a ref for you, check to make sure it's correct).
• I think the biography section could use some reorganizing to group similar concepts. I bet introducing subheaders would help with that. For example, you can put all the material on his philosophies about teaching and practicing medicine under the same subheader. Otherwise, group them together into a paragraph or set of consecutive paragraphs if there's not enough for a subsection.
• Even though it fits with the theme of libraries and books, the sentence "Sir William and Lady Osler's ashes now rest in a niche within the Osler Library, surrounded by his beloved books" is a little disconcerting in the middle of that paragraph. Also, I think "surrounded by his beloved books" sounds a little too much like commentary (articles should only state facts, not offer commentary on them). Also, I think the next sentence sounds introductory and should go at the start of that paragraph.
• "Osler was a true Renaissance man" is another statement that sounds like commentary. I think this article may be a little problematic with WP:NPOV by being too sympathetic. Whenever an opinion is offered, it needs to be attributed to someone. For example, instead of "his public speaking and writing were both done in a clear, lucid style", you could say "so-and-so praised his oration and writing, calling it clear and lucid" or something. With a citation.
• Use en dashes (–) rather than hyphens (-) for number ranges per WP:DASH.
• Most adverbs ending in -ly don't need hyphens when used with another word to modify a single word (unless I'm reading hyphen wrong.
• The sentence Throughout his life Osler was a great admirer of the 17th century physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne doesn't really fit in the article by itself, and it doesn't fit with the other sentence in that paragraph. I'd take it out entirely unless you can expand it to explain the significance, perhaps in a paragraph about his philosophies on the practice of medicine.
• I think the some of the medical terminology in the "eponyms" section could be simplified so lay readers can understand it.

The most important things are to add inline citations, especially for the quotations, and to go over the article to eliminate the too-sympathetic tone. I hope these thoughts are helpful! Definitely give me a heads up if I can offer any clarification or help. I'm glad to help work on the article if you want. Just drop a note on my talk page. delldot on a public computer talk 02:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)