News WikiProject Medicine making progress

n the 14 years since launched, it has become one of the I most popular sources of health information online. Although some doc- tors decry its crowd-sourced content as unreliable, studies indicate that many use it. Some even cite Wikipedia in their peer-reviewed journal articles, despite the availability of evidence-based Xavier S/iStock/Thinkstock sources, according to a 2014 BMJ study. The public and often rely on In 2004, an international group of Wikipedia for health information. WikiPro- physicians and other medical profes- ject Medicine aims to improve the content. sionals conceded the popularity of the Wikipedia juggernaut and formed the over the years have definitely improved voluntary WikiProject Medicine to the quality of its content,” says Heil- improve its medical content. man, who is also the head of the emer- “It’s easier to fix Wikipedia than it is gency department at East Kootenay to convince the half a billion people Regional Hospital in Cranbrook, BC. each month who use it, not to,” says Dr. In one case, the editors successfully James Heilman, president of the non- published a Wikipedia clinical review profit Wiki Project Med Foundation and on in the peer-reviewed a clinical assistant professor at the Uni- journal Open Medicine (which has since versity of British Columbia, Vancouver. ceased operation). Research that Heilman recently did The group is also establishing collab- with Microsoft (not yet published) orations with universities, the Cochrane showed that in the three countries most Collaboration, the United States Agency affected by the outbreak, the sin- for Healthcare Research and Quality, and gle most-used online source of informa- the World Health Organization, he says. tion about the disease was Wikipedia. Heilman is also conducting a study Not only is Wikipedia consulted, but with Samir Grover, an assistant professor more than 2000 websites mirror its con- of medicine in the Division of Gastroen- tent, including Facebook. terology at the , to The hazards of using Wikipedia for explore whether Wikipedia has a place medical information are well known and as a medical text. They are enrolling 50 were recounted in a 2014 BMJ study, to 100 first- and second-year medical headed by Dr. M. Dylan Bould, an assis- students in a study to see how they fare tant professor at the University of on an open-book standardized test using Ottawa. Chief among them is that any- Wikipedia, UpToDate (evidence-based one with access to the Internet can alter point-of-care clinical decision software) Wikipedia articles and insert misinfor- or electronic medical textbooks. mation, intentionally or not, Bould’s The researchers will compare each group said. group’s test scores, as well as the con- Working to reduce these hazards is tent areas where they make mistakes. WikiProject Medicine’s current group of For example, Wikipedia is thought to be about 270 core editors (defined as those weak in treatment, so they’ll want to see who have edited at least 250 articles in a whether the students make mistakes in year). They work with translation groups areas where each resource is known to to cover all 287 languages in which be weak. Wikipedia appears. Heilman began vol- Grover says Wikipedia may also be unteering with the project in 2007 and is better suited to the way adults prefer to now the most prolific of its medical edi- learn, that is, going to a resource where tors. In fact, he cut back on clinical work they can rapidly find an answer to a to devote more time to editing. problem. — Terry Murray, Toronto, “Wikipedia isn’t nearly as good as it Ont. could be yet, but the efforts myself and my fellow Wikipedians have put in CMAJ 2015. DOI:10.1503/cmaj.109-4982

CMAJ, March 3, 2015, 187(4) 245