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Revision as of 03:48, 23 March 2009

Please add notes to the end of this page. I'll probably reply here unless you suggest another page for a reply. Thanks, WhatamIdoing (talk)

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/Archive 1, /Archive 2

Assessment, Hospice care in the United States

Per your invitation, ping. :) (Forgive me if I'm pinging too soon, please. I'm excited about this one, since I love to see new contributors dive in like this.) --Moonriddengirl 16:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've just posted my comments and congratulations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Whatamidoing (did I get that right?) anyway, I do not know what Wiki protocol demands regarding your comments about coming to terms with death v. terminal illness. So, I guess I would say if you feel strongly about it I am fine with changing it back, and with that being said I would still re-state my thoughts that from the standpoint of a clinical and therapeutic relationship with a hospice patient that the phrase "coming to terms with your death" would not likely be used. How about coming to term with dying? Again, I don't know how big an issue this is considered. Thanks for your feedback.Tbolden (talk) 18:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for the delayed response: I've been offwiki for a few days. Misplaced Pages protocol demands that you make a good decision in the end; if that means rejecting my first suggestion, then please do so. I think I like your suggested phrase "coming to terms with dying" better than any previous proposal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:38, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for mediation/The Man Who Would Be Queen

Hello. Please see the above page as there has been a change in mediator and state whether or not you accept the new mediator. Regards, Ryan Postlethwaite 22:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Brown-Sequard Syndrome

Please advise what part of Brown-Sequard syndrome article is irrelevant or superfluous. Unless you are ready to make a concrete suggestion, placing tags on a well written article is not helpful. I am a spinal surgeon with 30 years experience, and I would imagine the fact that you have tagged this article indicates you have either no knowledge of the subject or only a superficial one. Be that as it may, please advise. I also have a law degree and have considerable experience as an editor to a medical-legal journal. As such, I would take issue with your placing the tag in what appears to be a willy-nilly fashion, based on some whim or superficial impression you may have formed. Perhaps you are one of those editors who insist that Misplaced Pages be written on a junior high level. That doesn't really help reach the goal of "making the world's knowledge available to all", as the founder of Wiki has espoused. Brown-Sequard syndrome is rare. Therefore the examples are also rare. There is no way to describe the syndrome without citing rare cases. Please advise, or remove the tag. A E Francis (talk) 00:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I have replied on the article's talk page, although I would have thought that the {{examplefarm}} template was perfectly clear: The article contains an excessive number of examples.

You may want to consider the recommendations of both WP:Encyclopedic style and WP:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles), but the basic advice I have for you is that no medical condition, no matter how rare, requires nineteen individual case histories to be presented in detail. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I have read your comments. Your conclusion that 19 examples is excessive appears to be an invention you have made up. It does not appear anywhere in the style pages you have provided. But that is beside the point. Please tell me which of the examples you think are superfluous and I will consider removing them. I am not persuaded by your vague, ill-defined notion that 19 examples is too many. If you think the wording or writing style could be improved, please do so. Placing a tag because you think 19 examples is too many, without anything more than a "gut feeling" is unreasonable and unwarranted. Please tell me which examples should be eliminated. A E Francis (talk) 02:38, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I am taking your comments under advisement and will be revising the article as you have suggested. A E Francis (talk) 02:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I am going to work on Brown-Sequard to reduce the amount of information. Give me a few days to get it done. There probably are too many words! A E Francis (talk) 03:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Acute myeloid leukemia

Thanks for your recent contribution to this article. I have no quibbles about changing around some of the wording, but you've inadvertently deleted part of an important detail. Namely, (1) mathematical calculations predicted the project would need much deeper sequence than is conventional (you kept this), and (2) the project did indeed require more than twice the conventional amount of sequence (you evidently deleted this). The current form of the text leaves the reader hanging on this second very important point, especially since subsequent sequencing projects will now largely follow the same deeper-sequence experimental design. It would be wonderful if you would consider restoring point number (2) in wording you consider to be acceptable. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 15:08, 9 February 2009 (UTC).

I don't think that any of this is important in an article about AML, and I seriously thought about deleting everything except a bare statement that AML was "first" in this technique. Details of gene sequencing techniques belong in articles about gene sequencing techniques. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I think what you'll find in the not-too-distant future is that such medical sequencing approaches to personalized medicine will become increasingly involved in treatment modalities. The AML sequencing project is big medical news with a lot of chatter right now at oncology conferences, although it's quite understandably not yet on everyone's radar. I'm sure the article will evolve appropriately as these developments make their way further into the mainstream. Again, thanks for contributing. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 22:42, 9 February 2009 (UTC).

It doesn't matter. Misplaced Pages is supposed to be filled with current knowledge, not with speculation about future medical developments. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Brown-Sequard talk pages merged

Let me know if you are ever ready to accept that RfA nomination --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:50, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Questions about HIV Cure

I had some questions about what you told me in the other article - I don't understand how you can say that if an HIV patient tests negative for the same exact antibody they used to diagnose them, it can't prove a cure. Are you saying this because the antibodies leave the body during the course of the virus? I need information about this topic, and it is quite urgent. I'm trying to put together a protocol to determine a cure. And it's proving much more difficult then I ever thought it would be. It seems that if HIV is not in the blood, if CD4 counts normalize, if the old antigen test shows no p24 protein after showing a consistent regression, it's not enough to prove someone has been cured. Do you know how to prove the virus has been killed? Using combined tests or one test that is not mainstream? What data is needed to show a cure? And I guess I'll check back on this page for an answer? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Jason1170 (talk) 17:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Jason, this can't possibly be as urgent as you think it is, because it would take more than one year of consistent results for anyone to believe that there was even a chance of eradicating HIV from a human. It will also be extraordinarily expensive: this study is going to be in the million-dollar range even for a small number of patients. However, here are a few points that you may want to consider:

• A normalized CD4 count proves that the person doesn't have AIDS, not that HIV isn't present somewhere in the body. CD4 counts can be suppressed for all sorts of reasons unrelated to HIV. This is therefore an essentially irrelevant test, although you might track it anyway as a piece of circumstantial evidence.
• An antibody test is worthless for this purpose. Antibodies may (rarely) be undetectable in the presence of a virus, and persist (always for weeks, sometimes for decades) in the absence of a virus. Did you get all of your childhood immunizations? If so, you very likely have a small number of antibodies against, say, diphtheria exotoxin, even though your body is C. diphtheriae-free (and likely always has been). You could force a person to be essentially antibody-free: pump them full of any B-cell-destroying substance (like rituximab), and they'll have no antibodies against anything. (Note that this would be dangerous.) Killing the part of the immune system that attempts to attack the virus isn't the same as killing the virus. This is one of the reasons that antibody tests are used for screening, not for formal diagnosis.
• A p24 test is okay, but it isn't as sensitive as a NAT test. (Have you read HIV test? If not, go read it.)

Yes, you'll need to use multiple tests. Given that eradication is the virologists' version of a perpetual motion machine, you'd probably want to run essentially every test in existence. Note that you must run your selected tests pre-treatment to establish not only the diagnosis beyond a shadow of a doubt (misdiagnoses do happen) but also to demonstrate that these specific tests show consistent and reliable results for the specific people in the trial. Do not change the tests -- not the type of test, not the brand of test, not the labs performing each test -- for any reason during the study.

Remember that you are attempting to prove something that all experts believe to be essentially impossible. You must therefore provide extraordinarily thorough, gold-plated data. You must have a non-treated HIV-infected control group (to prove that your tests keep working), and you should probably have a non-treated HIV-negative (and low-risk for infection) control group as well (to prove that the absence of HIV is being correctly interpreted). You must blind the study: the people doing the blood draws, running the blood tests, and interpreting the results must not know which patients are in the treatment group.

The tests must be handled in a systematically secure manner. If it were me, in addition to the precautions that you would use for evidence that you expected to present in court, I would have the tests performed by two large third-party labs, and I would also demand that each lab perform "genetic fingerprinting" tests on every blood sample to prove that the "cure" isn't a case of mixed up tubes (accidents happen, and "well, we've known all along that tetrasilver tetroxide was worthless, so we substituted someone else's blood after three months so we could get rich anyway" also happens). All blood samples need to be stored for possible re-testing in the highly unlikely case that it works.

Finally, to do this properly, you would need to demonstrate not simply that HIV couldn't be detected in the bloodstream, but also that it couldn't be found in the known reservoirs. I'd start with latent infection of memory T cells as both the most widely accepted problem and the simplest to test, but you also need to consider some dendritic cells, several structures in the digestive tract, and (sadly) nerves in the brain.

Oh, and the ethical thing to do is to publish the study design in advance and to publish your results even if (when) your data prove that it doesn't work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Wow that was very informative, and I thank you so much for putting that much time into writing a detailed reply for me. I want to explain my situation quickly for you, and you have confirmed what I planned - to have patients take all tests before the “product” then after, and, as you said ALL HIV tests except antibody. The thing is, this isn't for some profit, it isn't for the scientific community. You've enlightened me to the fact that if a group of doctors develop a cure, but only has a few hundred grand among them - enough to market the product a little - if they attempted some sort of trials without spending millions (like trials that indicate CD4 and VL increasing and decreasing consistently), special interests can easily rip them apart if they did not take all that you've written into account.

If you have time, I wanted to shortly explain why I need the info: I am part of a non-profit organization that doesn't want any money, we don't give a damn about money or recognition - our organization's website doesn't even list our names. We just care about helping people and saving lives. And we have mass amounts of donated stocks of a product developed by a former U.S. FDA registered, DEA licensed pharm. company that employed former college professors, a product researched by quite a few professors at North American Universities (mostly American), and finally a product researched and partly developed by an NIH laboratory. It was tested in vitro, in vivo against HIV in humans. Also, in vivo on rats injected with 10,000 times recommended dosage - the professor found that product produced NO adverse side-effects.

So, now you know our true goals are to help HIV patients and to save lives of AIDS patients. After CD4 counts normalize, after VL or NAT indicates no virus in the blood, we needed to determine "what's next," how to adequately prove a cure for HIV patients, not for the scientific community. What interested me most in your reply was what you said about testing known reservoirs, starting with "latent infection of memory T cells." What kind of test do we have to have HIV patients take to test for that? I'm guessing they provide blood? And when we call a lab, what kind of test do we tell them we want conducted? Latent infection of T-Cells is the most vital test, how could HIV be present in the body if it's no longer present in the T-Cells? No matter it's reservoirs, wouldn't they die out if there's no HIV in T-Cells? And, I was wondering if you know what the average cost of NAT, Viral load, p24, and the test I was asking for info about are? Any related info you are willing to provide would be very much appreciated. And if you would like any more info from me, I would gladly give it, I know the explanation was quite sort. Thanks SO MUCH for everything. Jason1170 (talk) 17:26, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

My fundamental reaction is "you poor person" -- not in the sense of not having enough money, but in the sense of being in way over your sneakertops. This doesn't have much to do with Misplaced Pages, though, so why don't you send me an e-mail message, and we'll take it offline? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

BHRT

Hi WAID,

Notice that I'm going through bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. It's fringe from what I know, and I don't see the recent substantial revision as an improvement. If you've any special knowledge, your input would be welcome. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/_complex 23:51, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not the sme you're looking for.

In general, here are my non-expert thoughts: BHRT isn't outright quackery like, say, cancer neoplastons, but it's certainly not important for most women. I suspect that custom (compounded) formulations probably do work well, or at least no worse than one-size-fits-most formulations, for some women. (The major advantage is probably just dose control.)

I can believe that the bioidentical hormones might work somewhat better for a few very rare women: I know and respect a gynecologist who has had good success with giving BHRT to several women that had failed other/non-BHRT treatments. I suspect, however, that the purported physical benefits, when you're looking at a population of a hundred million women, are overblown. (Then again, the physical benefits of fourth-line cancer treatments are unimportant to >99% of the people in that population, too.)

I suspect that for some women, the psychological benefits (which can be important) are much more significant than the physical effects. Overall, the whole thing reminds me of an acquaintance who takes one name-brand painkiller every day. She says that the generic version "doesn't work" for her, even though the only difference between the two (in this instance) is the shape and price of the pill.

I also suspect that the FDA's hard-nosed regulatory position dramatically overstates the risks. It's probably more about the regulatory turf war than about protecting patients.

But I'm not a reliable source. Good luck, WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:29, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Meh, I'm not really looking for a whole lot of expert support, more just a review that I'm not being overzealous or my edits are unjustified. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/_complex 23:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Bachelor party

Hi, you keep undoing a link I add, its totally relevant to the page so not sure why you keep reverting it? Thanks http://en.wikipedia.org/Bachelor_party —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.121.174.249 (talk) 09:17, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I would guess because of our rules on external links and promotion, but WAID will have to respond herself. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/_complex 13:28, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

WLU is right. The link to your "stag party service" violates Misplaced Pages's standards. See, for example, WP:ELNO # 4, 5, and 14. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

How have I not given you a barnstar yet?

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		Excellent contributions, superb sourcing, high standards and tons o' contributions? Have a barnstar because coupons don't e-mail well. WLU (t) (c) Misplaced Pages's rules:/complex 20:18, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

An editor's displeasure with my crop of his PD pic

Can you offer your thoughts on this matter? Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 18:02, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

John Ordronaux (doctor)

Thanks for the re-assessment. – ukexpat (talk) 01:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Rescues

Is there a specific place that you would like my clarification?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 01:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Is this vandalism??

Please look at his third attempt to edit this article basal cell cancer in the last few weeks: --Northerncedar (talk) 23:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC) (cur) (prev) 22:40, 25 February 2009 Nickcoop (Talk | contribs) (23,265 bytes) (I have moved the Mohs advertisment to the Mohs section.) (undo)

I'm not sure who "he" is in your question, but I looked at the last 50 edits on the page, and only this one (which removes information) could possibly be characterized as even partly vandalism. If your complaint is with any other change, then you have a garden-variety content dispute, and you need to stop the WP:Edit war and talk it out on the article's talk page until you all come up with something that isn't entirely disliked by everyone.

I don't think you understand what Misplaced Pages considers vandalism, so let me suggest that you take the next ten minutes and look at the last fifty or a hundred changes made in this list, or, if you're short on time, click here, here, and here to see a few examples. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I second what WhatamIdoing is saying, I've reverted Nickcoop's latest but not because either of you are right or wrong, or participating. You need to BOTH take this to the articles talk page and please stop editing the relevent section of the article until you've established consensus amongst yourself. Consistent reverting is just gaming the system. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 07:49, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

No content in Category:Unassessed-Class ophthalmology articles

Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Category:Unassessed-Class ophthalmology articles, by another Misplaced Pages user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Misplaced Pages. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Category:Unassessed-Class ophthalmology articles has been empty for at least four days, and its only content has been links to parent categories. (CSD C1).

To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Category:Unassessed-Class ophthalmology articles, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. To see the user who deleted the page, click here CSDWarnBot (talk) 06:30, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Cardiology task force

Cardiology task force

Cardiology task force is looking for editors to help build and maintain comprehensive, informative, balanced articles related to Cardiology on Misplaced Pages. Start by adding your name to the list of participants at Cardiology task force Participants. ECG Unit (Welcome!)

-- ~~~~

T.F.AlHammouri (talk) 12:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Pernicious Anemia Symptoms

I apologize for both using the first person here and not having an account. What were the copyright violations of the version you condensed? Without question, the article's symptom section needs to be cleaned up. The descriptions are far too anecdotal and figurative. Some of the details, however, need to be left in a more scientifically rigorous format. I suggest we work together in slowly paring down the material. Your edits were not undone out of spite, but simply because some of the material is potentially useful. I input some material into academic and commercial searches to find any violations, and so far I do not see any. The anemic features of PA are too small a sliver of its presentation, and its effects on the CNS and PNS are significant and merit recognition, or at least another good look. Just respond on this page, and I'll be sure to check it. And maybe I'll even get an account! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.179.80 (talk) 19:03, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks

Many thanks for pointing out to me at Misplaced Pages: Village Pump the category of external links requiring clean-up. It seems that one can always learn something new about Misplaced Pages. By the way, while I am here, I see you state on your userpage that you understand the difference between "it's" and "its". Hurrah! It is good to know that some one does. As a lecturer whose work involves marking undergraduate essays, I am rather concerned by the number of times I have to correct punctuation errors in essays which my students have submitted! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:39, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at the GA review

Jokestress want's to rewrite the whole page before she would say it was neutral. Sectioned into "description" "proponents" and "critics". (ironic since it basically is that way now, instead it treats this as a science issue and not a political one.) How much would ya bet she still would not be satisfied?--Hfarmer (talk) 01:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Reasoning behind edit

Hello! I've been puzzling over this particular edit:

Perhaps you decided to proceed fairly quickly, or maybe only after long deliberation. Could you please explain why you made that edit?

Thanks in advance! :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 20:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I have explained the purpose of this section several times, and on the policy's talk page, where anyone can read it: It is to prevent POV-pushing editors from elevating one policy over other] core policies. The fact that Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy (your stated reason for removing this section) is irrelevant. The "local consensus" of a few editors at a single article can never trump the community's major policies.

I have no belief that you actually want to understand why other editors do not consider your interpretation of your favorite policy to be the be-all and end-all of Misplaced Pages's purpose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:20, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

* So to summarise: you thought it was ok to revert my revert on the basis that you had explained the purpose several times already?

* A different question: Why do you think that I do not want to understand other editors in this case? Our interactions on this topic so far have been very brief. Could you point to a particular statement or edit I made that leads you to that conclusion? --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:43, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

No, I thought it was appropriate to revert your deletion of an entire section on the irrelevant grounds that "Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy". Policies like WP:Consensus are supposed to give direction about how to apply them, and there was a complete absence of any bureaucratic procedure in the three relatively simple sentences. Furthermore, there was, and had been, a good deal of talk about how to improve the section, which you might have better respected by joining the discussion (which you did) without imposing your POV by deleting the parts you personally dislike. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:20, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

disease

see talk page Earlypsychosis (talk) 09:23, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you

I appreciate the introduction to Misplaced Pages guidelines. Thank you for the notification and invitation!

Psychiatricnurse (talk) 20:03, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:V

I'm contacting you because of your participation at Misplaced Pages talk:Verifiability. In that context, please consider watchlisting one of the threads which is developing at Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration. The specific thread is awkwardly captioned:

I don't construe this as improper canvassing; however, I would expect you to form your own opinion in light of WP:Canvassing.

If you believe that reaching out to you was somehow improper, then don't contribute. Please pardon my mistake in posting this message on your talk page. Please do share what you think so that I'll begin to understand what it is that I've done wrong.

On the other hand, if you believe as I do that your arguably useful contribution to the development of this thread will be welcomed, then good -- no problem ....

Do whatever you think best. --Tenmei (talk) 03:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC)