Why Medical Schools Should Embrace Wikipedia: Final-Year Medical Student Contributions to Wikipedia Articles for Academic Credit at One School.

PROBLEM: Most medical students use Wikipedia as an information source, yet medical schools do not train students to improve Wikipedia or use it critically. APPROACH: Between November 2013 and November 2015, the authors offered fourth-year medical students a credit-bearing course to edit Wikipedia. The course was designed, delivered, and evaluated by faculty, medical librarians, and personnel from WikiProject Medicine, Wikipedia Education Foundation, and Translators Without Borders. The authors assessed the effect of the students' edits on Wikipedia's content, the effect of the course on student participants, and readership of students' chosen articles. OUTCOMES: Forty-three enrolled students made 1,528 edits (average 36/student), contributing 493,994 content bytes (average 11,488/student). They added higher-quality and removed lower-quality sources for a net addition of 274 references (average 6/student). As of July 2016, none of the contributions of the first 28 students (2013, 2014) have been reversed or vandalized. Students discovered a tension between comprehensiveness and readability/translatability, yet readability of most articles increased. Students felt they improved their articles, enjoyed giving back "specifically to Wikipedia," and broadened their sense of physician responsibilities in the socially networked information era. During only the "active editing months," Wikipedia traffic statistics indicate that the 43 articles were collectively viewed 1,116,065 times. Subsequent to students' efforts, these articles have been viewed nearly 22 million times. NEXT STEPS: If other schools replicate and improve on this initiative, future multi-institution studies could more accurately measure the effect of medical students on Wikipedia, and vice versa.

Quality toolbox: clinical pathways can improve core measure scores.

Clinical pathways (CPs) are decision-making tools designed to improve the quality of patient care processes and reduce costs. We conducted a retrospective analysis to determine whether multidisciplinary CPs had improved core measure scores. Comparative data to document secular trends were obtained from 45 Maryland hospitals. There were 6013 discharges with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), congestive heart failure (CHF), or acute myocardial infarction (AMI) for the 3-year data collection period ending in 9/30/05. The 72.5% of cases in which CPs were employed to manage CAP, CHF, or AMI were significantly more likely to meet the Appropriate Care Measure (ACM) standards than the 26% that did not (81% vs. 67.8%, p < .001). Scores for all 10 ACM components for CP-managed patients were better than Maryland state averages. Improvements were stable over a 3-year period of time.

Antibiotic timing and errors in diagnosing pneumonia.

BACKGROUND: The percentage of patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) whose time to first antibiotic dose (TFAD) is less than 4 hours of presentation to the emergency department (ED) has been made a core quality measure, and public reporting has been instituted. We asked whether these time pressures might also have negative effects on the accuracy of diagnosis of pneumonia. METHODS: We performed a retrospective review of adult admissions for CAP for 2 periods: group 1, when the core quality measure was a TFAD of less than 8 hours; and group 2, when the TFAD was lowered to less than 4 hours. We examined the accuracy of diagnosis of CAP by ED physicians. RESULTS: A total of 548 patients diagnosed as having CAP were studied (255 in group 1 and 293 in group 2). At admission, group 2 patients were 39.0% less likely to meet predefined diagnostic criteria for CAP than were group 1 patients (odds ratio, 0.61; 95% confidence interval, 0.42-0.86) (P = .004). At discharge, there was agreement between the ED physician's diagnosis and the predefined criteria for CAP in 62.0% of group 1 and 53.9% of group 2 patients (P = .06) and between the ED physician's admitting diagnosis and that of the discharging physician in 74.5% of group 1 and 66.9% of group 2 patients (P = .05). The mean (SD) TFAD was similar in group 1 (167.0 [118.6] minutes) and group 2 (157.8 [96.3] minutes). CONCLUSION: Reduction in the required TFAD from 8 to 4 hours seems to reduce the accuracy by which ED physicians diagnose pneumonia, while failing to reduce the actual TFAD achieved for patients.

Authorship versus "credit" for participation in research: a case study of potential ethical dilemmas created by technical tools used by researchers and claims for authorship by their creators.

The distinction between authorship and other forms of credit for contribution to a publication has been a persisting controversy that has resulted in numerous guidelines outlining the expected contributions of those claiming authorship. While there have been flagrant, well-publicized deviations from widely accepted standards, they are largely outnumbered by cases that are not publicity-worthy, and therefore remain known to only those directly involved with the inappropriate conduct. We discuss the definition and ethical requirements of authorship, offer a case example of the authorship debate created by a technical tool at our institution, and review parallels that support and dispute the authorship claims of our software developers. Ultimately, we conclude that development of a technical tool that enables data collection does not adequately substitute for contributions to study design and manuscript preparation for authorship purposes. Unless the designers of such a technical tool prospectively participate as a part of the project, they would not have an adequate understanding of the publication's genesis to defend it publicly and cannot be listed as authors. Therefore, it is incumbent upon project members to invite tool developers to participate at the beginning of such projects, and for tool developers to contribute to study design and manuscript preparation when they desire authorship listings.

Urinary tract infection at the age extremes: pediatrics and geriatrics.

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are common and generally benign conditions among healthy, sexually active young women without long-term medical sequelae. In contrast, UTIs are more complicated among those individuals at either end of the age spectrum: infants/young children and geriatrics. UTI in children younger than 2 years has been associated with significant morbidity and long-term medical consequences, necessitating an extensive and somewhat invasive imaging evaluation to identify possible underlying functional or anatomic abnormalities. Pediatric UTI should be considered complicated until proved otherwise, and treatment should reflect the severity of signs and symptoms. Management in the acutely ill child frequently involves parenteral broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents, and less ill children can be treated with trimethoprim- sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX), beta-lactams, and cephalosporins.UTI among older patients (>65 years) may be complicated by comorbidities, the baseline presence of asymptomatic bacteriuria, and benign urinary symptoms that can complicate diagnosis. The etiology of UTI encompasses a broader spectrum of infecting organisms than is seen among younger patients and includes more gram-positive organisms. Symptomatic UTI is generally more difficult to treat than among younger populations. Management should be conservative, of longer treatment durations, and cover a broad spectrum of possible uropathogens. Oral or parenteral treatment with a fluoroquinolone for 7 days is the preferred empiric approach. TMP-SMX can also be considered a first-line agent in women only, but only if the pathogen is known to be TMP-SMX sensitive.

Stress in medical residency: status quo after a decade of reform?

BACKGROUND: Although curricular reforms have attempted to address sources of stress in medical residency, no recent studies have examined the financial or emotional situations of current medicine residents. OBJECTIVE: To question medicine residents about financial status, educational debt, moonlighting, and psychological issues. DESIGN: Survey distributed in a nonrandomized fashion to medicine residents. SETTING: All 415 U.S. medicine residency programs. RESULTS: According to the questionnaire responses submitted by the 4128 (18%) participating residents, a substantial number of residents had financial and emotional distress that could have interfered with training. The reported educational debt was at least $50 000 for 1657 (42%) of the respondents and at least $100 000 for 737 (19%). The monthly disposable income was $100 or less for 1620 (43%) of the residents, and 637 residents (16%) could not afford safe housing. Among respondents in their 2nd through 5th year of postgraduate training, 2187 (52%) had insufficient funds to purchase books and equipment, and 678 (29%) could not afford the required fees for the American Board of Internal Medicine certifying examination; 2659 (33%) worked as moonlighters, and this percentage increased progressively with increasing educational debt. Four or five depressive symptoms during residency were reported by 1461 (35%) residents. Eight hundred ninety-nine residents (23%) thought they had become less humanistic over the course of their residency training; 2347 (61%) reported becoming more cynical. Female residents were more likely than male residents to report increased cynicism and multiple depressive symptoms. Increased cynicism and depressive symptoms were associated with increasing educational debt. CONCLUSIONS: Despite recent curricular reforms, an alarming number of current medicine residents report depressive symptoms, increasing cynicism, and decreasing humanism, which were associated with increasing educational debt and a need to moonlight for financial survival. Ongoing curricular reform, legislative relief from early loan repayment, and salary increases may be necessary to address these problems.

Pneumonia in the elderly.

Preview The risks of pneumonia are greater in older patients even if they are relatively healthy. Which patients require hospitalization? Is the search for a pathogen worth the cost and effort involved? Which agents should be used for empirical broad- spectrum therapy? Dr McCue addresses these and other questions.