Wikipedia:WikiProject Clinical medicine/Template for medical conditions
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
General pointers on writing medical articles include:
- Remember to cover the major points in user-friendly language.
- Avoid medical jargon or writing from a doctor's point of view. Explain all unavoidable medical terms the first time they occur. If the concepts required to understand the term are lengthy and only peripherally related to the subject you're working on, linking to another article that explains the term in depth is a good idea.
- If the latest research findings arrived in your post-box today, great. But as you add them to an article make sure they are supported by background content.
At the end of the article, place the article in all the categories it belongs in, but please use the lowest appropriate sub-level.
Useful top-levels to start looking under include:
- Category:Medicine
- Category:Diseases
- Category:Medical treatments
- Category:Pharmacologic agents
A tutorial on how to use the infobox is available at Template:Infobox Disease.
A medical article should begin with an introduction which is short, snappy and interesting. Explain and define the condition in plain English. This is your brief chance to lure a reader into reading further. Include the most interesting bits from all the following sections, such as the main symptoms, main cause, treatment and impact on person's health and prognosis.
For consistency, the top level headers should be limited to those specified below. The order below is recommended but in some cases it may be appropriate to present the sections in a different order (for example, if a disease is largely eradicated, then the history of the disease may be more important than the symptoms.)
There are some basic headings that are essential to any medical condition article – these are indicated with a "*". The other headers may not apply to all articles. More flexibility can be used when using lower-level headings. Where a heading below has a choice (/), pick the most appropriate.
Contents |
[edit] Classification
Describe the varieties of the condition, and explain how they are differentiated.
[edit] Symptoms and signs *
When possible, wikify the symptom/medical sign.
[edit] Cause/Etiology
Items such as pathogens, genes, or environmental factors may be appropriate in this section.
[edit] Diagnosis *
Tests commonly performed to establish a diagnosis (e.g. C-reactive protein, X-rays...) Also mention characteristic biopsy findings here.
[edit] Pathophysiology
The hard bit: discuss the main abnormalities (e.g. decreased FEV1 in COPD due to bronchial obstruction and/or decreased elasticity). This section can justifiably escalate into technical terms.
[edit] Treatment/Management *
Discuss and link to the key drugs and drug categories, surgical treatments and other therapies.
Acute and chronic aspects of the condition often require different treatments. If aggressive treatment is not always appropriate, consider including watchful waiting as an alternative. Long-term monitoring or frequent check-ups may be required.
[edit] Prognosis
What is the median survival, what complications can be expected? Be extremely careful when writing about prognosis. Reference every claim, and make sure you understand the data yourself before committing anything to paper. Include simple explanations of any limitations to the data.
[edit] Prevention/Screening
Most of us forget to talk about this enough.
[edit] Epidemiology
If not touched upon earlier in the article, mention incidence or prevalence, economic and societal impact, sex differences, age groups and other predisposing factors.
[edit] History
Often this is fascinating. Good resources are WhoNamedit.com for eponymous diseases, and good review articles (e.g. NEJM or the clinical reviews in J Clin Invest). Did you know that Hippocrates was aware of the significance of clubbing?
[edit] Social Impact
Many conditions have a section discussing the impact on the person in society, legal issues, stigma, public heath concerns, etc.
[edit] Notable cases
This section should be absent in most articles, but when it does exist, discretion should be applied, especially for the living and the recently deceased.
[edit] References *
- Further guidance is available at Wikipedia:Citing sources and Wikipedia:Footnotes.
Ideally every medical article should have a few historical references (e.g. first reported case, discovery of pathogenesis) and one or two recent systematic reviews in core journals. Textbooks are equally valid sources. In particularly hot topics, it may be tempting to add very recent studies on the latest developments; this may not always be the best idea - it may be enough to broadly signify a trend without endeavouring to keep the reference list completely up-to-date with the very latest studies.
Ideally any online reference will be to an open sites that do not restrict access to non-professionals or require a subscription.
Use of PubMed:
Abstracts of most medical journals are freely available at PubMed which includes a means of searching the MEDLINE database. Some tools have been created to help add a full reference to wikipedia articles:
- The PubMed site is: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi
- To just add a link to a PubMed article number (but without the whole reference), use: PMID xxxxxxxxx
- To convert a PubMed ID into a complete Wikipedia journal reference, use Diberri's tool at http://diberri.dyndns.org/wikipedia/templates/.
- Wouterstomp's handy bookmarklet uses Diberri's tool to make a Wikipedia reference when used on a PubMed abstract page. To add it to your browser (Internet Explorer or Firefox), do the following:
- In Internet Explorer, create a bookmark by choosing Favorites >> Add to Favorites...
- Right-click on the bookmark just created and select Properties
- Into the URL text box, copy and paste the following JavaScript line in its entirety: javascript:(function(){var url = location.href;var pmid = url.match(/list_uids\=(\d+)/);if( pmid ) w=open('http://diberri.dyndns.org/wikipedia/cite/?type=pmid&id=' + pmid[1],'add','width=800,height=300,scrollbars,resizable');})();
- When the bookmarklet is clicked whilst on a PubMed abstract page, it will open a new window with the properly formatted Wikipedia citation for the article.
- For the new citation system, enclose the {{cite book}} line within the <ref name="xxx"> ... </ref> tags at the relevant point in the article. After the ==References== header, add <references/> which displays the references. Any reference not cited from a specific point in the article may be added after this as a bulleted-list (using '*').
[edit] See also
Links in this section should be used sparingly. If two topics are truly linked, it should be possible to define that relationship with a sentence in the main article, and provide the wikilink there.
[edit] External links
Links in this section should be used sparingly. If an external link is provided, it is better to tie that link to an assertion in the article, and then use the Reference section instead of the External links section.
Significant international and (English-speaking) national organisations may be included here if they contain useful material to supplement the article. However, their number should be kept in check – Wikipedia is not a collection of links. This is an encyclopedia, not a promotional tool for charities however worthy, nor is it trying to be resource for those seeking help.
Further guidance is avaiable at Wikipedia:External links.
