

50% 0f doctors have used wikipedia as a reference. - olefoo
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327185.500-should-you-trust-health-advice-from-the-web.html?full=true

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baran
I don't know why Wikipedia continues to get a bad wrap for what it is: a very
general source of information online. I doubt any Doctor would consult
Wikipedia in making a decision on diagnosis or treatment.

However, Wikipedia continues to be the best source of general information
online. It is the Encyclopedia Brittanica of our time. It provides information
which can then be used as a launching point for further research.

Doctors in particular are some of the most knowledgeable people around. They
are, and have to be, life-long learners. With that said, Wikipedia is an
excellent resource to begin online research, but it is by no means definitive.
So this "study" is by no means troubling to me.

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marcocampos
Remember Mycin? Great expert system to support doctors. Never really used
because people where afraid about ethical and legal issues.

While this is not the same, how long before someone gets hurt because some
article was not totally correct or something similar? Someone decides to blame
Wikipedia or something like that and _puff_ , all other doctors stop using it
for fear of being put in a similar situation.

I, for one support the use of additional information from sources like
Wikipedia. Anyone remember that girl who self-diagnosed herself when all the
doctors before couldn't figure out what was wrong with her? It shows that
decent information that's peer reviewed constantly and with high availability
can be a great asset.

Let's hope people star trusting technology more in situations like this.

~~~
pmorici
Can't be much worse than a doctor not knowing the answer and making a wild
guess.

We place way to much implicit trust in medical professionals and esp. doctors.
Look at how many crappy IT workers are out there I've got to believe that the
medical field can't be much different.

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olefoo
The meaning of that 50% is fairly elusive, since the research is not
accessible to us. I'm guessing it's the result of asking something like "Have
you ever looked up any medical information on wikipedia?"; but they might just
as easily have omitted the 'medical' from the question.

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jeremymims
This is a good sign.

Although I'm sure some information on the internet is unreliable, I've been to
plenty of doctors in my life who have made incorrect diagnoses and given me
unreliable information too.

When doctors and patients have more information more easily available (even if
some percentage is incorrect), I can't believe that wouldn't help.

The real question is, why aren't all doctors checking online resources like
wikipedia in addition to the resources they normally use?

~~~
mixmax
Yes it is. Here's a quote from the article:

 _"How does Wikipedia fare as a medical reference? Its collaborative, user-
generated philosophy generally means that errors are caught and corrected
quickly. Several studies, including one examining health information, another
probing articles on surgery, and one focusing on drugs, found the online
encyclopedia to be almost entirely free of factual errors."_

~~~
TrevorJ
The danger would be 4chan, etc, changing info that has potentially life-
threatening implications.

~~~
anigbrowl
I wouldn't worry about that. There are no lulz to be had if nobody notices,
and wiki vandalism is so easy (and so easily correctable) that posting a wiki
alteration on 4chan is usually derided as lame - so much so that some other
4channer will likely revert and alert, since there are more lulz to be had
from getting the vandal's IP banned from wikipedia. Further, 4chan is not so
amoral as to find incorrect pharmaceutical information lulz-worthy...it's more
likely that they'd add the name of someone they didn't like to an article
about embarrassing social diseases, eg suggesting Christopher Poole has a
raging case of syphilis.

I can't quantify this of course, but I'd say the rare but real risks from bad
QC and errors in pharma documentation (typos or oversights on dosage level,
contraindications, half-life and so on) are a much greater risk than that
presented by /b/tards.

~~~
dfranke
_4chan is not so amoral as to find incorrect pharmaceutical information lulz-
worthy_

Uh. <http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Epilepsy_Foundation>

~~~
anigbrowl
Hey, I said nothing about those unworthies at 4 _20_ chan. Also, guilty lulz.

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logjam
To support the assertion, this article references the main page of the website
of a marketing company who published a "report" where 50% of doctors had used
wikipedia as a reference.

I can't find the "report" on their website anywhere.

Are they trying to imply that 50% of physicians had looked up
something...anything?... on wikipedia, or are they implying that 50% of their
sample of physicians made a diagnostic or treatment decision based on
wikipedia? What was the population surveyed?

If anyone can link to the actual study/report, I'd be interested.

There is much more reliable online information than wikipedia for physicians,
eg. Up-To_Date, Lexicomp, epocrates, MD consult, online Merck, etc. I've never
heard of a physician basing diagnosis or treatment on anything found on
wikipedia.

I love wikipedia, but don't use it like that.

------
thunk
... on Gossip Girl.

~~~
thunk
Damn, I've got to remember: "Straight face. No fooling around -- it's a
slippery slope. We _hackers_ don't appreciate that sort of thing." :)

