Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Task forces

This page can be used to gauge support for potential task forces under WikiProject Medicine before starting one.

Proposing a task force

To propose a task force, write a brief description (including links to the related Wikipedia articles), and add it along with your name to the list below (in chronological order). Some boilerplate you can use:

=== (Name of task force) ===
'''Description:''' 
[description here] ~~~~

'''Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)'''
# ~~~~

'''Discussion:'''
* '''Comment''' (or '''Oppose''' or other indicators)

To attract members from outside WikiProject Medicine, you might also want to post at note at the task force section of the pan-Wiki proposal page. A small number of one-time announcements on the talk pages of key articles and related WikiProjects may also be appropriate.

Expressing interest

If you are interested in any of the task forces listed here, simply add your name to the appropriate list under Interested Wikipedians and start contributing to the relevant articles. The discussion section of each proposal is designed for expressing support, opposition, or any other comments or concerns, whether or not you intend to join the task force. When adding to a discussion, please provide your rationale for support or opposition; this is not a numerical vote.

*'''Support''' - [Rationale for support] 
*'''Oppose''' - [Rationale for opposition] 
*'''Neutral''' - [Concerns or suggestions]

Creating a task force

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Task forces#Task_force_creation_guidelines

Proposed task forces

Preventive healthcare

Description: The preventive healthcare task force would collaborate to create, edit, and verify health information related to the practice of preventive medicine, the science supporting the medical practices that are employed, and clarifying active areas of research, controversies and myths in the field of preventive healthcare . --losrivas (talk) 03:14, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Related Articles:

• Preventive healthcare
• Primary Care
• Screening_(medicine)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. --losrivas (talk) 03:14, 3 November 2014 (UTC)-- I am by no means an expert. I am a physician in general internal medicine. We would need task force leaders with more expertise than I have, but I'm happy to get the ball rolling.

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)
• Support This field is actively researched, an important field that all healthcare professionals are educated in to some degree, is it's own medical specialty, is the corner-stone of Primary care, intersects with other health fields which could contribute much to the discussion and content (e.g. Public Health, Epidemiology, Virology, etc.), and is an important area for the general public to be educated on in order to inform societal discussions on health care policy and inform personal decisions related to preventive medicine (e.g. vaccination). --losrivas (talk) 03:14, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

• Comment User:LeadSongDog I appreciate your effort to streamline my contribution by changing it to preventive healthcare from preventive medicine. What do people think about the difference between preventive healthcare and preventive medicine? Preventive medicine is somewhat narrower. Is that preferred or discouraged in WikiProject Medicine? I'm new here and any feedback is helpful. losrivas (talk) 11:09, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose Can you give some articles apart from the three you mentioned which will come under the task force role. I think prevention information can be included in all articles and does not merit being a separate task force. Drsoumyadeepb (talk) 17:50, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Comment by losrivas (talk) 02:19, 4 November 2014 (UTC). A fair request. Articles that would fall under the Preventive Healthcare Task Force:

1. 2009_flu_pandemic_vaccine
2. Abdominal_aortic_aneurysm#Screening
3. Advisory_Committee_on_Immunization_Practices
4. American_Board_of_Preventive_Medicine
5. American_Osteopathic_Board_of_Preventive_Medicine
6. Amniocentesis
7. Antenatal_steroid
8. Artificial_induction_of_immunity
9. Attenuated_vaccine
10. BCG vaccine
11. Birth control
12. Booster dose
13. Breast_cancer_screening
14. Breast_self-examination
15. Cancer_screening
16. Cancer vaccine
17. Cell-free_fetal_DNA
18. Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention
19. Cervical screening
20. Cholera_vaccine
21. Chorionic_villus_sampling
22. Colonoscopy
23. Colorectal_cancer#Prevention
24. Colorectal_cancer#Screening
25. Colorectal cancer screening
26. Condom
27. Conjugate_vaccine
28. Diabetes_mellitus_type_2#Screening
29. Diphtheria#Prevention
30. Down_syndrome#Screening
31. DPT_vaccine
32. Expanded_Program_on_Immunization
33. Fecal_occult_blood
34. GAVI_Alliance
35. General_medical_examination
36. Gonorrhea#Screening
37. Harm_reduction
38. Hepatitis_A_vaccine
39. Hepatitis_B_vaccine
40. Hepatitis_E#Prevention
41. Herd immunity
42. Herpes_simplex#Prevention
43. Hib_vaccine
44. Historical_annual_reformulations_of_the_influenza_vaccine
45. HIV_Vaccine_Trials_Network
46. HPV vaccines
47. Human_papillomavirus#Prevention
48. Hypercholesterolemia#Screening
49. Hypertension#Prevention
50. Inactivated_vaccine
51. Influenza vaccine
52. Immunization
53. Immunization_registry
54. Inoculation
55. Joint_Committee_on_Vaccination_and_Immunisation
56. Lifestyle_medicine
57. List_of_preventable_causes_of_death
58. Live_attenuated_influenza_vaccine
59. Lung_cancer_screening
60. Malaria_vaccine
61. Mammography
62. Mantoux test
63. Measles_vaccine
64. Meningitis_Vaccine_Project
65. Meningococcal_vaccine
66. MMR_vaccine
67. MMRV_vaccine
68. Mobile_diabetes_screening_initiative
69. Mumps_vaccine
70. Needle_exchange_programme
71. NHS_health_check
72. Nicotine_replacement_therapy
73. Opioid_replacement_therapy
74. Osteoporosis#Screening
75. Pap test
76. Patient_Health_Questionnaire
77. Pentavalent_vaccine
78. Pertussis_vaccine
79. Plague vaccine
80. PneumoADIP
81. Pneumococcal_conjugate_vaccine
82. Pneumococcal_polysaccharide_vaccine
83. Pneumococcal_vaccine
84. Polio_vaccine
85. Post-exposure_prophylaxis
86. Pre-exposure_prophylaxis
87. Prenatal_diagnosis
88. Prevention of HIV/AIDS
89. Preventive healthcare
90. Preventive_Medicine_(journal)
91. Prostate_cancer_screening
92. Pulse_Polio
93. Pulse_vaccination_strategy
94. Rabies_vaccine
95. Risk_factor
96. Risk_factors_for_breast_cancer
97. Rotavirus_vaccine
98. Rubella_vaccine
99. Safe sex
100. Screening_(medicine)
101. Self_care
102. Sex_education
103. Sexually_transmitted_disease#Prevention
104. Smallpox vaccine
105. Smoking_cessation
106. Stroke#Prevention
107. Supervised_injection_site
108. Syphilis#Prevention
109. Tetanus_vaccine
110. Tobacco_harm_reduction
111. Tuberculosis#Latent_tuberculosis
112. Tuberculosis_vaccines
113. Typhoid_vaccine
114. UK_National_Screening_Committee]]
115. United_States_Preventive_Services_Task_Force
116. Vaccination
117. Vaccination_policy
118. Vaccination_schedule
119. Vaccine
120. Vaccine-naive
121. Vaccine-preventable_diseases
122. Vaccines_for_Children_Program
123. Varicella_vaccine
124. Variolation
125. Weight_loss_coaching
126. Weight_management
127. Yellow_fever_vaccine
128. Zoster_vaccine

* Support I agree that some of the work this task force would be doing would fall under the "Prevention" sections in other articles that were primarily managed by other task forces. E.g. Human_papillomavirus#Prevention. I think a preventive health task force could improve the quality and efficiency of the "prevention" sections of such articles, expand them into independent but related articles, etc. I have included some of these sections in the list above. This cross-collaboration would be mutually cross-beneficial. It is the nature of the field of medicine that there is significant overlap between disciplines, and this overlap enhances the work done because problems are approached from multiple vantage points. Another example of this discipline overlap is, say, Pneumonia. This might fall under the categories of Infectious disease, Emergency medicine, Pulmonology, Hospital medicine, or even outside of strictly medical fields such as Microbiology. I don't think overlap with other fields should be a reason not to organize a task force around a field of study and practice such as Preventive healthcare. Thanks for listening, eager to hear further feedback and from people interested in working on this. losrivas (talk) 23:40, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

• Support The exhaustive list provided by losrivas makes sense now . I support it the Taskforce deserves to be created. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drsoumyadeepb (talk • contribs) 11:13, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Neglected tropical disease

Description: Neglected tropical disease task force aims to better organize information in relation to neglected tropical diseases as defined by the World Health Organisation.Neglected tropical diseases cause human suffering and death particularly in the poorest regions of the world with poor socioeconomic growth. Drsoumyadeepb (talk) 04:21, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Drsoumyadeepb (talk) 04:21, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
2. Already worked to improve the leads of all neglected disease articles Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:04, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)
• Comment I'd suggest merging this to the proposed #Infectious disease task force and calling it that. Although there are many neglected tropical diseases, this seems to be a subset of all the infectious diseases, which might have a better chance at attracting more people. --Scott Alter (talk) 17:04, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
• Comment Scott Alter Yes it is a subset but not all NTD's are infections(eg. snakebite) I see that the infectious disease task force itself is rebundant and remained in proposal form since 2012. Why not take this subset as start , improve these and later go to increase scope and be infectious disease task force. Lets start small . Also I feel NTD as some typicality which might not be present in infectious diseases in general. Join the NTD banf and lets start. (Drsoumyadeepb (talk) 12:22, 2 November 2014 (UTC))

Invitations Would you all be interested User:DoctorJoeE , , User:Zszabo81, and User:Edgar181?

User:Doc_JamesHow does a proposed Taskforce gets accepted and how many people required? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drsoumyadeepb (talk • contribs) 15:58, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Trauma & orthopaedics

Description: A task force to help curate the Wikipedia articles relating to orthopaedics, based around the T&O portal, which are currently lacking in content and knowledge compared to other specialities.

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Mschamberlain (talk) 00:58, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)
• As there are only a few people interested currently I would just work on improving this content within WP:MED. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 03:43, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Podiatric medicine

Description: A task force for the changing and expanding profession of podiatric medicine.

Articles of relation:

Podiatry Podiatrist Foot and ankle surgery

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. PodDPM (talk) 06:56, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)

Neurofibromatosis

Description: I would like to create a task force focussing on Neurofibromatosis as it's own field. I have been updating NF-related pages and I find that my edits go unchallenged, which worries me. Here are NF-related pages that I have edited which I would tag with the NF task force in the Discussion page if people like the idea:

• Café au lait spot
• Children's Tumor Foundation
• DNA sequencing
• GTPase
• Imatinib
• Lapatinib
• Legius syndrome
• List of cutaneous conditions
• Lovastatin
• Mutation
• Neurofibroma
• Neurofibromatosis
• Neurofibromatosis type I
• Neurofibromatosis type II
• Neurofibromin 1
• Peginterferon alfa-2a
• SPRED1 gene
• Schwannomatosis
• Solitary neurofibroma
• Sunitinib
• Tipifarnib
• Watson syndrome

Erxnmedia (talk) 13:14, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Erxnmedia (talk) 13:14, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Discussion:

• I think it's too narrow. You might try to find a partner through one of the broader groups, like Medical genetics, Neurology, or possibly Dermatology. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:55, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
  • When you get into it, it's not that narrow:

1. The disease produces many complications impacting a broad variety of medical specialties: Neurofibromatosis type I#Treatment.
2. In terms of treating the underlying problem of neurofibroma, the experts seem to be banded into underlying mouse-model researchers and try-out-a-specific-drug researchers, and the experts at the two levels don't seem to have a clear picture of the state of the art of each other's work: Neurofibroma#Drug_therapies.
3. The Neurofibromin gene can become the NF-1 gene through thousands of possible mutations. This produces symptoms that can be confused with mutations of other genes such as SPRED1. These mutations are not easily repairable. Different mutations have different outcomes.

• • So on the one hand it seems narrow, but on the other hand, if you drill down to the work being done and what are the disciplines involved and who are the experts, it is actually a deep field with hard problems, and it is deep enough that no expert in the field presently has a view of the entire field. The concept of it being a field unto itself is implicitly recognized in the fact that many hospitals now have a Neurofibromatosis Clinic which is devoted to NF alone: Neurofibromatosis#Academic Research and Clinical Centers
  • In addition I would add that the experts I have come into contact with seem as a group to disdain Wikipedia and not have time to edit it, which means that it is inherently the role of interested onlookers to do the work of keeping Wikipedia up to date in this area. This is unfortunate but this is why I am trying to raise this as a task force because I care about this issue and I can see that while it is a deep problem it remains a very low visibility issue for most people. I am trying to attract more medically/scientifically competent editors than myself to active work on the related articles. Unfortunately all of the most fussy and active Wikipedians are attracted, like moths to a flame, to articles such as Death of Osama bin Laden and Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Erxnmedia (talk) 17:48, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I agree with WhatamIdoing that the scope is too narrow. But because we think this way in no way implies that we disagree with your points above. Larger hospitals have clinics for many disease processes that effect more people then NF, including hypertension, diabetes, and HIV. These are all huge topics compared to NF, yet they do not have their own projects. (I know - there is Wikipedia:WikiProject Aids, but it was only active for a few months in 2005.) To create a successful project/task force, you need 2 components before you start. First, a clearly defined scope with a significant number of articles to be included. Second, a number of people who want to work together on the topic. You have listed 22 articles, which to me, is far to few. Although there is no defined minimum, 100 is around right with me. You should be worried that the scope is too narrow if you need to come up with a list of articles you would include. (Yes, there are two existing WPMED task forces have 27 and 39 articles, but those were originally separate projects that were absorbed by WPMED. They were never really that active, but if someone wanted to work on those topics, I'm sure more than hundred articles could easily be tagged each for gastroenterology and radiology. All of the other task forces have at least 100.) Also, just because you create a task force does not mean people will join it. You need support before the task force/project is created. Otherwise, it will just go inactive. The way WPMED is currently organized, only medical specialties are task forces. That doesn't mean we wouldn't consider other topics, but to date, there hasn't been sustained interest in anything else. --Scott Alter (talk) 21:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
      • OK, I see your point...I guess I am in danger of becoming an accidental quasi-expert on this topic, and a task force of 1, but I can handle it. I'm just used to working on important articles like Joe the Plumber where interest was wide and edits were fast, furious and contentious. Erxnmedia (talk) 13:17, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Infectious disease

Description: [description here, and author to please sign the description with four tildes]

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 14:59, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
2. Carlos Rivas/talk to me 08:00, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Isn't this already covered by the Pathology task force? Seems redundant. Mmagdalene722 (talk) 16:05, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

No - they are totally different medical specialties. The model of task forces in WPMED is that they are basically split up by medical specialty. While "pathology" can be used to describe anything abnormal, the task force mostly covers entire articles relating to what pathologists do (see {{Pathology}} and Category:Pathology). The pathology of specific diseases is mostly covered by the task force of the medical specialty that would treat a patient with the condition.

In the US, ID is a sub-specialty of internal medicine. ID docs complete an internal medicine residency and then a fellowship in ID. They see patients at the bedside - either as primary care physicians or more commonly as consultants. ID docs may order tests or cultures, but they do not physically perform the tests. Pathology is its own residency. Pathologists typically work in (and are in charge of) hospital labs and look at tissue slides under microscopes to diagnose things. Pathologists do not actually see patients - they interpret slides like radiologists interpret images. In hospitals, I'm not sure who performs the specimen cultures, sensitivities, and Gram stains. It's probably a tech overseen by a physician medical director, but I do not think these types of tests are verified by pathologists. --Scott Alter 03:28, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• Would this include Public health as well? I'd just realized that Water treatment was not within WPMed and came here looking for the appropriate task force... LeadSongDog come howl 20:57, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

• Public health and Infectious disease, as disciplines, have many areas of over lap, but different approaches and different ways of organizing information. E.g. Tuberculosis. Infectious disease practitioners are principally concerned with the diagnosis, manifestations and complications of disease, and treatments. Public health practitioners are more concerned with epidemiology, risk factors, screening, case finding, prevention, quarantine, etc. Carlos Rivas/talk to me 08:00, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

• I think we should revive this proposal. It is important we have a task force working in this field. Let's get a few interested parties and we can go ahead and create. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 14:59, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
• I'm here for the revival. Carlos Rivas/talk to me 08:00, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Potential quackery

Description: This idea needs a more inclusive name, but I'm thinking of something that would cover outdated theories, new-but-not-accepted ideas, all WP:FRINGEy articles, a good deal of alternative medicine, and the like. Re-discovering Wilson's temperature syndrome and the strange changes recently made at Leukemia#Causes_and_risk_factors is what got me thinking about it. Potential categories of interest include:

• Category:Alternative cancer treatments
• Category:Experimental medical treatments
• Category:Medicinal use of cannabis
• Category:AIDS denialism
• Category:Patent medicines

Specific articles probably include anything named Health effects of ____ or ____ and health.

My goal is a cross-disciplinary noticeboard that might interest some people at WP:FTN, WP:SKEPTIC, WP:WPHOS, and perhaps WP:ALTMED; without interest from people outside the WPMED core group, then it's probably not worth starting an extra page for this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Renaissancee (talk) 05:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
3. pustelnik(talk) 9:12, 7 June 2009

Discussion:

• Comment: I don't think a task force here would be the best format for such an endeavor. Everything within the scope of WPMED (tagged with {{WPMED}}) should be strictly within the confines of conventional, accepted medicine. Maybe WPMED could keep a noticeboard page outside of a task force. This page could list all of the questionable articles, without actually including them within the scope of the project. This way, articles can all be easily watched with "related changes". --Scott Alter 00:43, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

What's wrong with preserving history? Renaissancee (talk) 05:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Endocrinology task force

Description: Endocrinology is a major area of medicine, and it should have its own task force, plus there is allot of articles that need to be cleaned up, expanded and created. Maen. K. A. (talk) 13:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Maen. K. A. (talk) 13:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
2. pustelnik(talk) 9:12, 7 June 2009 I'll be happy to look at pediatric endocrine articles
3. Lee, Diana (talk) 18:38, 26 July 2009 (EST)
4. Fishmuffin Cool beans. 17:28, 8/8/10 (GMT - 4)

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)
• Seems like four ought to be enough to get this one going. If nobody objects by 31 October, lets get it started. I'll remind the above.LeadSongDog come howl! 18:17, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Health informatics

Description: Health informatics is the science of applying information science and information technology in health. It is an important field, that is growing, and wikipedia has a number of articles already but that are in need of some more serious attention. Look at Category:Medical informatics and Category:Health informatics - I recently added a category Category:Health informaticians that attempts to gather together some of the informaticians who have profiles but many more bios could and should be created of some of the leaders in this field. Karl.brown (talk) 21:16, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Karl.brown (talk) 21:16, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
2. Prashanthns (talk) 10:30, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
3. Atlantima (talk) 20:57, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
4. Shelley V. Adams ‹blame
   credit› 12:48, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Worthy of note, as of 2 August 2014 at 00:50 (UTC) 13 additional WP:MED participants listed bio- or medical informatics in their "Special interests or contributions." Shelley V. Adams ‹blame
  credit› 16:18, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Occupational medicine

Description: Occupational medicine is a multidisciplinary field covering traditional medicine, several alternative medicine fields, business practices, insurance policy and many other areas both within and without medicine. Obviously related articles include: physical therapy, tendinitis, lumbar epidural steroid injection, anterior cruciate ligament injury, rotator cuff tear, spinal fusion, radiculopathy, Workers' compensation, Waddell's signs, and an untold number of redlinks. Most of the work associated with this task force would likely have to do with expanding coverage of medical treatment as used in this field. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. My own focus would be from the utilization review side of Occ. med. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
2. MaenK.A._Talk 07:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)
• Neutral Good idea, but I don't really find OM very interesting. Renaissancee (talk) 00:26, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
• Support there are many articles in this field that need expanding and monitoring MaenK.A._Talk 07:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Anesthesia

Description: The Anesthesia page is currently in constant turmoil due to constant edits from political parties adding talking points. My goal is to keep the page from becoming about politics and maintain it. There have been many attempts by moderators to keep the peace without success.Mmackinnon (talk) 03:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Mmackinnon (talk) 03:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
2. JakobSteenberg (talk) 16:32, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)
• Comment Do we really need a task force to protectt one article? Renaissancee (talk) 16:05, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment Would it be appropriate to roll this into a greater occupational medicine and pain management (or just pain management in general) TF? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 01:55, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment: If this task force is created, its purpose should not be solely to protect one article. There are plenty of articles in Category:Anesthesia for a potential task force to cover. Also, the content relating to anesthesia is not well organized. I think there should be separate articles on Anesthesiology (the field of medicine), Anesthesia (ways to decrease sensation), and Anesthetic (agents used to decrease sensation). The Anesthesia article is currently pretty long, so dividing it into separate articles would make sense. It could also reduce the turmoil, since each article would have a specific focus, instead of covering such a wide spectrum. Currently, there are separate articles for local anesthesia/local anesthetic and general anesthesia/general anesthetic, so I think it would make sense to split anesthesia as well. I do not think this should be combined with occupational medicine, as anesthesia and occupational medicine are unrelated. Pain management is a subspecialty of anesthesia (along with PM&R, neuro, and psych) not the other way around. --Scott Alter 15:30, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, I understand that they aren't strictly related, but combining into an alternative, multidisciplinary TF might get more involvement. Maybe even a general "pain" TF. Just thinking aloud, I suppose. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 18:57, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
• Comment: Perhaps create a pharmacology task force that would cover all forms of drugs instead? It seems like the task forces that would fail are those that tend to be specific and those that succeed are those that tend to be broad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fishmuffin (talk • contribs) 22:05, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Surgery

Description: Surgery is a huge area in medicine that demands coverage on this project. Much to my surprise, this has not been addressed yet. There is a vast amount of articles out there on wikipedia that need cleaned up and improved as well as ones waiting to be created. Tyrol5 [Talk] 01:07, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Tyrol5 [Talk] 01:07, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

1. BakerStMD T|C 21:50, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Murtaza Amirali

Discussion:

• Agree with what tyrol5 said above. Please let me know if you are interested, I'd love to collaborate. BakerStMD T|C 21:51, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Otolaryngology and head and neck surgery

Description: Otolaryngology and head and neck surgery is a fast developing speciality. A separate task force is a must. Drtbalu (talk) 13:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Dr. T. Balasubramanian Drtbalu (talk) 13:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Discussion:

Autoimmune diseases or just Immunology

Description: The most common cause of all diseases in the world today is autoimmune diseases. The current article on autoimmune disease lists about 46 accepted or suspected autoimmune caused diseases. This is no where near a complete list which would probably be comprised of a couple hundred diseases (Researchers have identified 80-100 different autoimmune diseases and suspect at least 40 additional diseases of having an autoimmune basis, though it may be significantly more than this). In fact, I have not found a good list anywhere, tending to leave out a number of lesser known suspected autoimmune diseases (e.g. Dercum's disease). This ought to be remedied. The list of cutaneous conditions has nearly been expanded into oblivion, why shouldn't autoimmune diseases get the same level of attention and consideration? Also, there are a number of articles pertaining to autoimmune diseases that need cleaning up, updates to conform their content to modern thinking, and general expansion.

Immunology would cover autoimmune diseases along with hypersensitivities, immune deficiencies, etc. Fishmuffin 17:55, 8 August 2010 (UTC - 4)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Fishmuffin
2. Jbarin

Discussion:

• Comment: The current state of immunologic topics on Wiki is immensely variable - somewhere between decent and disastrous. Basic immunology (introductory-level Janeway) is generally appropriate for the audience. The autoimmune disease pages are frankly poorly written, and filled with fringe - although the major diseases (multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis) tend to be better. There frankly aren't enough editors to cope with the massive amount of WP:NOT, WP:NOR, and other reasons to facepalm. Frankly, immunology remains a niche discipline, and a very active area of research, in no small part because we lack an understanding that is both discrete and comprehensive of how molecular and cellular pathways integrate into the big picture. Autoimmunity is among the most problematic of those mysteries. I would support an Immunology group, working under both WikiProject Medicine and WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology. Jbarin (talk) 11:26, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• It seems that the proposed taskforces on autoimmunity and rheumatology have not raised much interest so far. My proposal would be to merge the two proposals - which overlap in many aspects- in a "Rheumatology/Autoimmune diseases" taskforce. Dr. Pereira (talk) 15:55, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Rheumatology

Description: Major advances have been done in recent years in the field of Rheumatology, linked to a better knowledge of disease mechanisms and to the introduction of new classes of drugs which have revolutionized the treatment of inflammatory diseases. Wikipedia coverage of rheumatology is far from being complete, and many articles do not reflect this explosive progress and need substantial revision.

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. WayneyP (talk) 17:22, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
2. Dr. Pereira (talk) 15:54, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Discussion: It seems that the proposed taskforces on autoimmunity and rheumatology have not raised much interest so far. My proposal would be to merge the two proposals - which overlap in many aspects- in a "Rheumatology/Autoimmune diseases" taskforce.--Dr. Pereira (talk) 15:54, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Inpatient Care/Hospital medicine

Encompassing the field of hospital medicine and general inpatient care: [Wikipedia seems the ideal platform for collaborating on collating/synthesizing the best practices/research/literature on inpatient care. While in the US this is typically referred to as Hospital medicine, I find inpatient care more inclusive of other non-medical specialities (rehab, geriatrics, alc, psychiatry) that also deel with the challenges of coordinating care within a complex institution.] Laith Bustani (talk) 03:57, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. User:Laith Bustani
2. Carlos Rivas/talk to me 08:09, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)

Critical care or Intensive care

Description: Intensive Care or Critical care is an essential department of any modern hospital and is a rapdily growing speciality. Intensive care encompasses the craft of providing care to the critically unwell patients. The impact of this field of Medicine is extremely significant from the Physician, Patient and the general public's perspective. Combining age-old clinical wisdom, incorporating cutting edge scientific research, advanced technology with providing patient-centred, empathetic care, this highly-advanced and ever-changing field of Medicine transgressing many vertically separated knowledge domains of Medicine requires the contribution of experts and non-experts alike in the building of a contemporanous repository of information relating to this field of medicine, to make a difference to the lives of the critically unwell patients and their families.It warrants its own task force to look after relevant articles within the project. --Balaji.md au (talk) 22:43, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 14:53, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Balaji.md_au/talk to me--Balaji.md au (talk) 22:37, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
2. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 14:53, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
3. Carlos Rivas/talk to me 08:04, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)

Sports medicine

Description: Sports medicine is something that is of interest to a variety of HCPs as well as the general public. Coverage of professional sports often touches on acute and chronic injuries, clinical outcomes, diagnostic techniques and it would be useful to provide reliable information to the general public. Additionally, amateur athletes experience injuries and would benefit from a free, reliable resource. Mrfrobinson (talk) 22:57, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. Mrfrobinson (talk) 22:57, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
2. ITasteLikePaint

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)
  • Comment While I do agree that athletes will benefit from a reliable resource on sports medicine, we must be careful to avoid providing medical advice. If they're hurt, they should seek the advice of a medical professional

Epilepsy task force

Description: The purpose of the ILAE Wikipedia Epilepsy Project (project page) is to improve the coverage of epilepsy related articles on Wikipedia. This would involve tagging the existing articles, assessing their quality, making a to do list for those articles, making the changes, submitting them for evaluation by epilepsy experts, and to make further changes as needed. The scope will also extend to creation of new articles either using article drafts and new article review process or by overall following the process delineated above. You can learn further by reading a more detailed project plan. The project aims to bridge the gap between academia and Wikipedia and to create a community of epilepsy professionals on Wikipedia. I have been selected as the editor in chief of the project (news) and would be facilitating the process. Members from Wikimedia Medicine and WikiEdu are providing active support. Creation of 'epilepsy task force' will help in tagging the epilepsy articles (even though there is an 'neurology' taskforce existing, the scope is slightly different) and thus will help in streamlining the efforts. Diptanshu 💬 09:38, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Interested Wikipedians (please add your name)

1. User:Diptanshu Das
2. User:NANDAN YARDI
3. User:Avicenno

Discussion:

• Comment (or Oppose or other indicators)
• Comment - I do not believe there is a need for an epilepsy task force of WPMED:
  1. Wikipedia:WikiProject Epilepsy already exists, which has achieved your goal of tagging articles and bringing together editors interested in epilepsy.
  2. I don't see the point of having 3 separate projects all dedicated to epilepsy. The purpose of projects/task forces/collaborations is to have centralized discussions with groups of people on specific topic areas. Dividing epilepsy discussions into multiple areas does not accomplish this. If your goal is to publicize the project, creating lots of pages about it is not the way to go. The ILAE collaboration page can be the location for central discussion to bridge academia and Wikipedia relating to epilepsy.
  3. Task forces of WPMED have not been dedicated to specific disease entities, but rather broad areas within medicine (mostly by medical specialties). Some diseases/disorders/conditions/disabilities have their own projects (see Category:Health WikiProjects and Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Science, technology, and engineering WikiProjects#Health WikiProjects). I do not think having diseases/disorders/conditions/disabilities as task forces within WPMED would be useful. As it is, there aren't enough participants in WPMED to support task forces. Having hyper-specialized task forces would make the overall project even more unwieldy and divide already thin discussions.
  4. WPMED task forces are effectively dead. It has been years since there have been any significant discussion on any of the task forces' talk pages.

The best option forward is probably what currently exists: Wikipedia:WikiProject Epilepsy to focus on the articles/tracking/editing and Wikipedia:ILAE Wikipedia Project for the ILAE collaboration. --Scott Alter (talk) 19:15, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Scott Alter makes good points; it may be more appropriate to mark these Task Forces as historical. WPMED need to be built back up before it can be split into Task Forces, and they just are not used. I worry about resources being diluted, and conversations not being centralized, with very few active editors. I suppose that makes me an Oppose, although I dislike Discussions that promote voting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Epilepsy is entirely inactive. Very few articles are tagged, and few people are editing them.

There is a discussion on its talk page about merging it as a task force to WPMED several years ago. There was no opposition, so that could be done. However, it might be easier (and therefore faster) for the ILAE group to WP:REVIVE the existing group – just take over and do whatever you want with it – and let us deal with the merge whenever they're done. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• 1. I think Scott Alter makes an excellent point. I was unaware of the existence of Wikipedia:WikiProject Epilepsy and reviving it should suffice. It is ok if it functions as an independent WikiProject, but a taskforce would have sufficed. Currently we are just starting to pool together the epilepsy professionals and I expect that we can be active very soon. Diptanshu 💬 08:40, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Other discussions

Chronological order

"Proposing a task force" says "To propose a task force, write a brief description (including links to the related Wikipedia articles), and add it along with your name to the list below (in chronological order)." Do you mean add it to the top or bottom of the list? Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 13:48, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

A modest view would move to the bottom except recent history suggests otherwise. The above list from top to bottom is approximately 2014, 2014, 2014, 2012, 2011, 2009, 2009, 2009, 2009, 2009, 2010, 2010, 2010, 2012, 2011, 2012 or 2016, 2012. Thanks anyway. -SusanLesch (talk) 14:42, 2 May 2018 (UTC)