I've been a huge fan of Wikipedia from the beginning (we even donate to their site). I'm a big believer in the power of collaborative projects, especially when it comes to knowledge sharing and on-line projects. With that being said, I was interested in this project from the beginning. Like I said in a previous post, I use Wikipedia frequently and my own anecdotal feeling mirrored the results my more official scientific study confirmed: that Wikipedia covered many topics and was generally accurate. Common sense says that if Wikipedia was as terrible as some academic heads claim it wouldn't be the 6th most visited website in the world.
As mentioned, I had an interest in this topic to begin with, but I became more interested in the question as I progressed through my study. As it turns out, there have been many previous studies published questioning Wikipedia's content, including studies regarding their medical content. Many of the prior studies regarding Wikipedia's medical content found similar finding as my study: Wikipedia has a broad scope and is generally accurate, but lacks completeness. Beyond these results, two of the more interesting studies showed (1) Wikipedia has been found to be more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica and (2) the accuracy and content of Wikipedia's articles improves with time and modifications to its articles. Both of these results lead me to believe that with time, Wikipedia will continue to improve and be a more reliable source of information.
For my study, my results are encouraging and I got approval for a poster presentation of my study at the 2013 ACOFP conference at Las Vegas. I plan on further development of my study in hopes of getting it published in a journal or journals.
Wikipedia is the major elephant in the academic room. My study, along with several other published studies show that it is a reliable source of accurate information, though it is somewhat incomplete. It has been shown that as time progresses and the more an article is edited, the article becomes more accurate and improves. This suggests that as time passes, Wikipedia will become more and more accurate. My suggestion to those in academia is to quit denying Wikipedia and embrace it. All of the available evidence says Wikipedia is a mostly reliable source that improves with time. It has too large of an online presence to deny, and studies have shown its quality improves with time. Some scientific journals even require Wikipedia publication before one's article will get published in their journal. Wikipedia is here to stay. It's pretty darn good. All of the evidence says so.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Wikipedia: Final Results
Below are the results to my Wikipedia study.
The purpose of my study was to determine if Wikipedia is a good source for patients to go to for medical information. I wanted to answer this question because Wikipedia is such a popular source for information. I did a side study to determine Wikipedia's popularity in Google searches for medical terms. I searched the top 88 most commonly used medical diagnoses used in family medicine, and Wikipedia had an article for the diagnosis searched on the first page of search results 98% of the time. The average search result place in Google was third. It's the 6th most visited website in the world according to Alexa.
Given the above results, I think Wikipedia is a good source for patient's to utilize for introductory health information. Because it lacks completeness, I would suggest another source such as familydoctor.org (a patient information source from the American Academy of Family Physicians) for more complete information. However, due to Wikipeida's enormous online presence, patients are highly likely to access it for health information.
- I found Wikipedia's scope to be impressive. It had an article listing a treatment regimen for greater than 90% of the medical diagnoses I encountered this past summer.
- The completeness of their articles was lacking. Most articles were quite incomplete in the treatment regimens they listed.
- However, the treatments that were listed were mostly or completely accurate a majority of the time.
The purpose of my study was to determine if Wikipedia is a good source for patients to go to for medical information. I wanted to answer this question because Wikipedia is such a popular source for information. I did a side study to determine Wikipedia's popularity in Google searches for medical terms. I searched the top 88 most commonly used medical diagnoses used in family medicine, and Wikipedia had an article for the diagnosis searched on the first page of search results 98% of the time. The average search result place in Google was third. It's the 6th most visited website in the world according to Alexa.
Given the above results, I think Wikipedia is a good source for patient's to utilize for introductory health information. Because it lacks completeness, I would suggest another source such as familydoctor.org (a patient information source from the American Academy of Family Physicians) for more complete information. However, due to Wikipeida's enormous online presence, patients are highly likely to access it for health information.
Friday, January 25, 2013
I Hate Winter & Wikipedia Update
Not only does the condition of my skin get horrible during the winter, the temperature outside has been so cold my automatic car starter isn't working (the car needs an extra long crank on the ignition which the auto starter just can't do). Additionally, the temperature has been so cold a pipe in our apartment froze and busted, resulting in a flood in our apartment. I'm writing this post on my computer from my living room as half of our apartment has been evacuated. All of the stuff in that half is surrounding me, piled up as if it were in a storage shed. Additionally, there are multiple loud and industrial fans trying to dry the carpet, making for great ambience for a Friday night. Suffice it to say it has ruined my week a bit. See Sarah's blog for more detail.
Back to my Wikipedia project: Wikipedia is one of the most popular and visited websites in the world. It is an online encyclopedia which contains articles that can be written and edited by anyone. It's ease of use makes it a popular source for information on the internet. However, since it can be authored by anyone many question its accuracy, especially in academic settings.
Personally, I love Wikipedia and use it nearly everyday. Its ease of use and broad coverage of topics makes it a very convenient source of information. Based on my anecdotal observations from casually using the site, I find most of what I read on there to be pretty accurate. I do use the site for my job, though not to dictate medical treatments. For instance, if I needed to remember what sturge-weber syndrome is, the first place I'd go look is Wikipedia. The goal of my project was to determine if the information presented in its medical articles was accurate. Specifically, I was looking at medical treatment regimens for various diseases.
Over the course of three months, I recorded the diagnosis of every patient I saw in two family medicine clinics where I work. I then looked up their corresponding articles on Wikipedia and recorded the treatment listed in a file. Additionally, I recorded the treatments listed for the various diagnoses from Up To Date in a file. Up To Date is an evidence-based, peer reviewed online source for medical information. It requires a subscription. It is the most commonly used online source for secondary medical information in the United States.
After I recorded the treatments for the various diseases, I developed a scoring rubric to compare the two sources. I graded Wikipedia's articles on three topics: scope, completeness, and accuracy. Stay tuned later this weekend for the results.
Back to my Wikipedia project: Wikipedia is one of the most popular and visited websites in the world. It is an online encyclopedia which contains articles that can be written and edited by anyone. It's ease of use makes it a popular source for information on the internet. However, since it can be authored by anyone many question its accuracy, especially in academic settings.
Personally, I love Wikipedia and use it nearly everyday. Its ease of use and broad coverage of topics makes it a very convenient source of information. Based on my anecdotal observations from casually using the site, I find most of what I read on there to be pretty accurate. I do use the site for my job, though not to dictate medical treatments. For instance, if I needed to remember what sturge-weber syndrome is, the first place I'd go look is Wikipedia. The goal of my project was to determine if the information presented in its medical articles was accurate. Specifically, I was looking at medical treatment regimens for various diseases.
Over the course of three months, I recorded the diagnosis of every patient I saw in two family medicine clinics where I work. I then looked up their corresponding articles on Wikipedia and recorded the treatment listed in a file. Additionally, I recorded the treatments listed for the various diagnoses from Up To Date in a file. Up To Date is an evidence-based, peer reviewed online source for medical information. It requires a subscription. It is the most commonly used online source for secondary medical information in the United States.
After I recorded the treatments for the various diseases, I developed a scoring rubric to compare the two sources. I graded Wikipedia's articles on three topics: scope, completeness, and accuracy. Stay tuned later this weekend for the results.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
You Cited Wikipedia?!?
I am mostly working from home this month (I still have clinic a few days per week) with the goal of answering one question: Is Wikipedia accurate? Wikipedia is easily one of the most polarizing sources for information available, especially in academia. Teachers hate it and students love it and most people have formed some opinion on the site. I admittedly love the web site and the whole concept behind the site and have developed a formal plan to answer the question of Wikipedia's reliability as a source of information.
As far as I know, every medical resident in the country has to participate in a research project during the course of their residency. The requirements for my project were quite broad. It has to be academic and focus on some aspect of medicine. That was the only requirement. As I said, I use Wikipedia quite frequently and some of my colleagues even make fun of me for doing so. I decided to focus on this amazing source of information to determine how accurate (or inaccurate) the information contained on the site actually is. In the coming posts I will explain how I went about answering this question. Stay tuned. The results might surprise you.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
The Name's Bond
This weekend Sarah and I (and Katie) went to the theater to see Skyfall, the newest James Bond film. It was the first time I had been to a movie theater in a few years. I am not a huge movie fan in general but like Bond quite a bit. I've been in a big kick over the past few weeks with all of the advertisements and have even watched a few of the older movies I have on DVD. Today I was shopping on Amazon and found the whole Bond collection on Blu Ray (excluding Skyfall, of course) for only $130 and decided to get it as one of my Christmas gifts (I didn't want to wait as the collection was on sale and normally retails for around $300). I am looking forward to watching all of the Bond films, starting with the first one Dr. No all the way up to the most current films starring Daniel Craig, not to mention all of the extras that come with the Blu Ray collection.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Traveling Back Through Time
Besides the autumn "fall back" in time this weekend, a couple of other things happened over the past few days which made it seem like I was time traveling into the past.
Last week our DVR quit working out of the blue. While I was on the phone with the cable company, it came up that we did not have a home phone line and asked if we had thought about getting one. The last time we had a home phone line, we paid $20 a month for it and the only people who used it were the state police bugging us for donations. I really didn't see the purpose in paying for the service so we discontinued it. However, our cell phone service in our apartment is very poor. I think it is due to the way our apartment building is constructed. It can be very difficult to talk on the phone and dropped calls are common. Obviously this is annoying and starting next summer I will begin taking at home phone call for the clinic I work at, so having a reliable phone line is a must. So we went ahead and added a land line phone. We got the phone service and upgraded our internet speed to 20 Mbps (I was clocking it at over 30 yesterday) for just $1.25 more per month (how could you pass that up for the internet speed boost alone???). We bought a new home phone yesterday at Amazon. I wasn't even sure if they still made phones like that. I never thought I would buy one again.
The other thing that happened recently was on Saturday I was at the hospital interviewing fourth year medical students for positions in our residency program. It was just three years ago when I was in their shoes interviewing for spots myself. I remember how incredibly anxiety inducing the whole situation was. Even though it was just three years ago, it seems a lot longer than that as a lot has happened in those three years. How quickly the tables can turn.
Last week our DVR quit working out of the blue. While I was on the phone with the cable company, it came up that we did not have a home phone line and asked if we had thought about getting one. The last time we had a home phone line, we paid $20 a month for it and the only people who used it were the state police bugging us for donations. I really didn't see the purpose in paying for the service so we discontinued it. However, our cell phone service in our apartment is very poor. I think it is due to the way our apartment building is constructed. It can be very difficult to talk on the phone and dropped calls are common. Obviously this is annoying and starting next summer I will begin taking at home phone call for the clinic I work at, so having a reliable phone line is a must. So we went ahead and added a land line phone. We got the phone service and upgraded our internet speed to 20 Mbps (I was clocking it at over 30 yesterday) for just $1.25 more per month (how could you pass that up for the internet speed boost alone???). We bought a new home phone yesterday at Amazon. I wasn't even sure if they still made phones like that. I never thought I would buy one again.
The other thing that happened recently was on Saturday I was at the hospital interviewing fourth year medical students for positions in our residency program. It was just three years ago when I was in their shoes interviewing for spots myself. I remember how incredibly anxiety inducing the whole situation was. Even though it was just three years ago, it seems a lot longer than that as a lot has happened in those three years. How quickly the tables can turn.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
An EPIC Week
I've spent close to 10 hours this week in a classroom learning about EPIC, the new electronic medical record software our hospital will be switching to shortly. As soon as I discovered that there was actually a class to teach us how to use the software my expectations immediately were lowered. Then when I got to the class, we were told that this was a very basic introduction to the system.
The fact that doctors are being forced to use these insanely complex systems is absurd in my opinion. We have a dictation and charting system that has been used for years that is effective and quick. With more and more demands on our time I question the value of having doctors doing what basically is secretary work. Furthermore, if we are going to be forced to use these systems, they should be intuitive and easy to use. They should not require a ten hour course to learn "the basics" and we should not have a screen that has about 100 button choices to chose from.
You might be fooled into thinking that being younger and growing up around computers would benefit me. I am sure that to a certain extent I can pick up on things quicker since I've basically been around computers my entire life. But no way could I walk up to a computer running one of these systems and figure out how to get it to do what I want it to without training and/or experience. That's a real problem in my opinion. These systems should be as intuitive as using Google.
The fact that doctors are being forced to use these insanely complex systems is absurd in my opinion. We have a dictation and charting system that has been used for years that is effective and quick. With more and more demands on our time I question the value of having doctors doing what basically is secretary work. Furthermore, if we are going to be forced to use these systems, they should be intuitive and easy to use. They should not require a ten hour course to learn "the basics" and we should not have a screen that has about 100 button choices to chose from.
You might be fooled into thinking that being younger and growing up around computers would benefit me. I am sure that to a certain extent I can pick up on things quicker since I've basically been around computers my entire life. But no way could I walk up to a computer running one of these systems and figure out how to get it to do what I want it to without training and/or experience. That's a real problem in my opinion. These systems should be as intuitive as using Google.
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