Doctors getting their medical information from Wikipedia? Michelle Au hopes not:
Hey, I love me some internet, and I don’t know how people did research and traded information without it. But man, trusting Dr. Wiki is taking it one step too far. He’s like the chiropractor that takes out ads on the subway.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
One of the professors plagiarized* entire sections from wikipedia in Pharmacology. I don’t know what, if anything, happened to him.
* Is it possible to “plagiarize” something anyone can edit?
hmm. i ve used wiki many times. great place to find obscure information. from european history to information on the details of medication. its not a bad place. i would consult it and i am a physician. i dont think id take any recommendations for patient care from there. but i would certainly think you could learn a few things about the mechanisms of action and minor pharmacology as well as other things. i am a real big fan of wiki. of course. things like dosing info i woudl recommend you get from somewhere else. but for the hard facts. wiki is a real great place.
this is the second blog ive seen trying to bash wiki.
I love Wikis! If there are enough hands on it (to make one giant “invisible hand”), the inaccuracy you give up at the micro level is more than made up for by macro efficiency:
http://www.thelongtail.com/the_long_tail/2005/12/the_probabilist.html
I love that post.
Of course, you’d want to double-check your facts, but wouldn’t you anyway? Regardless the source.
Ms. Au Quote:
“I love me some internet, and I don’t know how people did research and traded information without it.”
Well, Ms.Au science progressed very nicely, before there was an internet, thanks to the libraries usually found at major universities and medical schools, and which
very nicely subscribe to many, many,many research and medical journals.
Some of us ( oldtimers!) like to read journals that we can hold in our hands.
I have a secret…that’s lots of scientific/medical information that is NOT available to internet users.
Hmmm!
I should have added, that anyone with a graduate degree should be ashamed of himself/herself for having to use Wikipedia information.
Bah!
I don’t know that those with advanced degrees use it because they need it as much as it’s just so terribly convenient when preparing lecture materials.
Control-C. Control-V.
Weee!
“so terribly convenient when preparing lecture materials.”
Cop-out??
“One of the professors plagiarized* entire sections from wikipedia in Pharmacology”
How do you know it wasn’t the other way around??