Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles

To-do list

• Add advice on how to incorporate the psychological, emotional, and social effects of health problems into articles.
  • should be infused throughout
  • may need some subsections, e.g., reaction to a life-threatening diagnosis
  • I support this one—and not just because I'm a psychologist! ;-) ... We have had discussion about this topic before. Let's link to such archived discussions, e.g., this one from 2008. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 14:36, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
• Add advice on how to present costs.
  • accuracy ("the wholesale list price in Ruritania in 2017 according to Alice", not "the price")
  • WP:MEDMOS2020 results
  • any recommended metrics, such as cost effectiveness, cost per DALY averted,[1] etc.
• Add statement about gender-neutral language.
  • Avoid unexpected neutrality for subjects very strongly associated with one biological sex (e.g., pregnancy, menstruation, and ovarian cancer affect "women"[2]; prostate cancer and orchiditis affect "men") but encourage gender neutrality for all others (e.g., heart disease)?
  • Defer to MOS for any individual person.
• Reading levels
• How to talk about suicide-related content (e.g., the "committed" RFC)
  • I've added a statement about the word "commit", and alternative phrasings. Bibeyjj (talk) 12:10, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
• Clarify how to include "evolution" in anatomy articles (suggest under "Development" subheading). Bibeyjj (talk) 18:52, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
• (Your idea here)

What to do with this to-do list?

It's not clear to me if the above "To-do list" is a WikiProject Medicine effort, i.e., something we, as a WikiProject, have decided (via consensus) to establish, or if it was one (unidentified) editor's idea, or something else. Can someone clarify? Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 03:51, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

This is a collection of items that various conversations and disputes have indicated (a) it might be helpful for MEDMOS to address but (b) exactly what the consensus is or how to address the subject in MEDMOS will require further discussion.

Any editor is welcome to add a suggested topic to the list. It doesn't have to be a subject that you personally care about or relates to an article you were editing. Please add enough context that we can figure out what your subject is later.

If you feel ready to address one of the topics, then please start a new ==section== at the end of the page to ask a question or make a proposal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:53, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Please don't start discussions in this section. Please do add links to prior discussions and examples or other details that you think will be helpful (signed or not, as you choose) when we have the real discussions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Suicidal/self-harm action description

"Do not describe suicide or other self-harm actions as being successful, unsuccessful, or failed. This is unclear and judgmental."

Ironically, this is unclear and judgmental.

How about: "This is unclear about whether the action was fatal, and implies intent that may not be known." LesbianTiamat (talk) 10:57, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

This isn't about the person's intent. Declaring the outcome (whatever it was) to be successful, unsuccessful, or failed is passing judgment on what the correct/best/good/desirable outcome is.

This particular bit of advice falls under the heading "Language choices sometimes carry connotations that are not obvious to every editor. A term or phrase that sounds normal to you might sound stigmatising, offensive, or biased to someone else." Not everyone will find every point in that list to be obvious, or even sensible. It exists to let editors know that other people have other views. Generally, I find that most editors don't want the choice of language ("How dare they call that 'successful'!) to be the main thing that people remember from an article they're writing. Following that advice might help people focus on the article's contents instead of on wording choices. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Well said. I try to make similar points pretty frequently, along the lines that if what you've written causes a mental revolt in the reader about the wording, especially along offense-taking lines, then your writing has failed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:50, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, SMcCandlish thought you may be interested in The Finnish miracle: how the country halved its suicide rate – and saved countless lives. I thought of you guys when I read this bit:

Just a few decades ago, the word “suicide” was also almost unsayable – and unprintable. Soon after it opened in 1972, Mieli’s crisis centre in Helsinki changed its name from “suicide prevention centre” to “crisis prevention centre” because there were objections to publishing the word in the phone book. For many older Finnish people, Sihvola says, “suicide” is still a difficult word to say; as with the word “bear” – as in the animal – there is a sense that saying it will bring it closer.

Colin°^Talk 20:27, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Observance of correlation is never proof of causation, and is often coincidental, though it is interesting, and in association with a lot more data might be food for thought. But for one thing, there's a linguistic absurdity here: English isn't used in Finland (except here and there as a second language), so suicide was not the word in question, but some Finnish word (probably itsemurha) that is usually translated into English as suicide. There may be shades of meaning and implication (possible multiple of them) pertaining to that word (or some other – what was the actual name of the institution in question?) in the Finnish language and its philological history.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:52, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

That might be the case, but it's more likely that they have a naming is calling superstition (which is widespread). See also the reticence of English speakers to use the word cancer just one generation ago. People used euphemisms like wikt:big C, or they whispered it.

It would be interesting to see whether Attempted Suicide Short Intervention Programme is notable, or at least if it's worth mentioning as an example of secondary prevention or in suicide prevention. It should be mentioned in Suicide in Finland.

The line "The highest proportion of attempts are still among middle-aged men" has reminded me that we need to check the main suicide-related articles to see whether we have too much "angsty impulsive teen" stereotype. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:34, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I read it as when they wrote 'the word "suicide"' they meant whatever the Finish word was, not the English word. It made me wonder if there are words like that in English. And also whether other cultures have the same attitude to euphemisms as we do (or even if we are consistent). Like I sense we consider them foolish nonsense to be avoided in technical or professional writing but in other cultures they might think professional writing required some of them in order to avoid being outrageously rude or distractingly offensive. -- Colin°^Talk 08:54, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I think that one's own settled euphemisms are not always obvious. It's just the way you write. We resist some of them (e.g., WP:PASSEDAWAY) but not others (e.g., the articles containing some variation on "use the toilet" instead of defecate or urinate). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:23, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Feminine hygiene appears to be a contentious euphemism that remains the article name. Discussions on renaming this seem stalled on COMMONNAME arguments (COMMONNAME is not necessarily encyclopaedic) and not giving an inch in the gender-neutral debate. Outside of the weirdness that is Wikipedia, I can't find anyone arguing for keeping this euphemism from a bygone sexist age. A quick PubMed search of article title/abstract in the last 10 years had "Menstrual Hygiene" eight times more popular than "Feminine Hygiene". UK supermarkets have dropped the term in favour of "Period products". -- Colin°^Talk 16:58, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if editors would have better success in finding a title for that article if they first decided whether it should be "products" or "hygiene" (which would include not only commercial products, but also non-product-oriented activities like washing). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Does Major depressive disorder, a featured article violate WP:MEDSAY?

I have noticed that this article contains a long excerpt from Digital media use and mental health, which lists many systematic reviews and describes them in detail, for example:

• In April 2013, the Journal of Adolescent Health published a systematic review of 33 studies of adolescent girls that found a positive association between screen time and depression.
• In June 2016, Adolescent Research Review published a systematic review of 12 studies of subjects aged 11 to 21 years that concluded that while internet technology may provide adolescents opportunities to seek emotional and social support, the research reviewed did not establish that internet technology lowers rates of adolescent depression.
• In December 2017, Adolescent Research Review published a systematic review of 11 studies comprising 12,646 child and adolescent subjects that found a small but statistically significant correlation between social media use and depressive symptoms.

Do you think these violate WP:MEDSAY? Bendegúz Ács (talk) 18:55, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

@Bendegúz Ács, yes, I do think that is the kind of stylistic problem that MEDSAY says not to put in articles. I've blanked about 10% of the article for being out of compliance with WP:MEDDATE (this is a heavily researched area, so sources should be from the last five or so years), which will cut down on the stylistic work that needs to be done.

Overall, I wonder whether a complete re-write would be ideal. It might be easier to start over than to try to transform the existing catalog of published papers into an encyclopedia article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:34, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

I also find this article to be full of excessive undue details that make it hard to read, so I agree that a complete rewrite may be the best way to deal with it. What worries me more than Digital media use and mental health is that so much of its subpar content is excerpted in Major depressive disorder, which is a featured article, supposedly "[one] of the best articles Wikipedia has to offer". There is a call for a review of that status in the article's talk page from 2022, and based solely on the issue I found, I could agree that it's needed. Considering that I don't have too much interest in investing more time in fixing the article, do you think the best course of action in this case is to submit it to a review? Bendegúz Ács (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be faster to ask @Casliber about it directly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Watching high traffic articles can be difficult, especially when busy with outside endeavours for protracted periods. I'll try and take a look Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:57, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

(update) I have removed the offending section for the time being, due to it being in the wrong section of the article and in far too much detail for the scope of the article. The material should be distilled to 3-4 sentences and placed in either causes or management section. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:39, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

@Bendegúz Ács: thanks for highlighting this. Took me a while to figure out what happened. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:40, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to you too for fixing it, this is a useful experience for me to understand both the guidelines and the editing process. Bendegúz Ács (talk) 21:18, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Should articles about human anatomy not include Human in the title?

According to this guideline, articles about human anatomy should not include "human" in the title if "non-human references" to these topics are not common, even if it is necessary to disambiguate them from articles about non-human anatomy.

Should Wikipedia's articles about the human brain and skeleton be titled Human brain and Human skeleton, while its articles about human pregnancy and human kidneys are simply titled Pregnancy and Kidney?

I don't see any logical reason for these less-specific titles, and would prefer to give these articles more-specific and less-ambiguous names. Jarble (talk) 16:35, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Pregnancy has been discussed many times, and unless you are able to answer all of the usual objections, then I doubt it would be worth your time to try to get the article title changed. In particular, I suggest that you type pregnancy into your favorite web search engine and figure out the percentage of results that are human vs non-human. For me, I get:

• 10 ordinary search results, 100% of which are human
• 12 images, 100% of which are human
• 5 news stories, 100% of which are human
• 100 books, 100% of which are human

100% of the search results being about humans is practically the definition of '"non-human references" to these topics are not common'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

• No. Starts like "In humans, the kidneys are two reddish-brown..." are fine, or a hatnote - ideally more of these would be worked into the text (I see you have been going around adding them). Note that Kidney gets 1,400 views a day, Mammalian kidney gets 37. Johnbod (talk) 18:40, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

  And https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Kidney indicates that 0.3% of the page views for Kidney result in someone clicking through to Mammalian kidney. That suggests that about 99.7% of readers aren't looking for non-human results. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@Johnbod and WhatamIdoing: References to non-human anatomy are much less common than references to human anatomy, but articles that only describe human anatomy often include human in the title.

According to this guideline, should Wikipedia's article about the human brain be titled Brain because references to non-human brains are relatively uncommon? Jarble (talk) 13:36, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Choosing "Brain" for an article entirely about the human brain would violate neither this guideline nor the Wikipedia:Article titles policy.

Whether it's better depends largely on editors' understanding of the contents of each article. I would generally encourage editors to pick the Brain/Human brain combination if the general article has significant information about the human brain as well as non-human brains. I would generally encourage editors to pick the Brain/Brain (non-human) combination if the general article does not have much information about human brains. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 31 July 2024 (UTC)