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)

Section headings for Surgeries or procedures

A few observations about the currently advised headings for surgeries / procedures

1. We have "Uses" and "Contraindications". Why not "Indications" and "Contraindications" for parallel structure? At this point someone will say that "uses" is more understandable. If so, then why use "Contraindications"... why is that not also considered too complicated for readers to understand?
2. We have "Complications" before "Technique". This is not sensible. Most complications are more understandable to readers once they are vaguely familiar with the procedure. It is also better to put complications after a description of the procedure because this will be the sequence in which readers may wish to learn about the different aspects of the topic.
3. In which section are we supposed to discuss the effectiveness / evidence for the procedure? It would better to have this in a dedicated section, probably near the end, before "History".

Moribundum (talk) 08:40, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

1. (a) Because (as you say) "Uses" is more understandable. (b) Because "Reasons not to use" is not an appropriately formal encyclopedic tone.
2. "Complications" has been placed there because it is sometimes interchangeable with with "Risks". These come before the technique because if you decide not to do it at all, then there's no need to talk about the technique. Some complications are technique-dependent. Others are not. Especially if the complications are technique-dependent, you might want to rearrange the sections. See the top of the section: The given order of sections may be varied, particularly if that helps an article progressively develop concepts and avoid repetition.
3. In every relevant section. For example, rates of complications should go in "Complications". If the same procedure is used for multiple indications, then rates of overall success might be in "Uses". If different techniques produce different rates of success, then that information might be in "Technique". And if the subject is Arthroscopy#Knee osteoarthritis, then I won't object if every other sentence is another variation on "It doesn't work".

WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:23, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello, saying that the word "indications" is too complicated but "contraindications" is not doesn't make sense to me. What about parallel structure? (Parallelism (grammar))... this is an important factor in readability.

Re. position of complications section yes I did not consider that argument. But still seems more logical to discuss complications after technique. I didn't see the advise to rearrange the sections if required.

Agree that rates of complications should go in complications section. Agree that comparison of success rates of different techniques could go in techniques section. But if we are talking about overall success rate and evidence base for the procedure, this would benefit from a dedicated section imo.

See for example this article sacral nerve stimulation (work in progress). There are many different indications. I've added a dedicated "effectiveness" section. By the way, I've also ended up adding a section "mechanism" because I didn't know where else to put that content. Moribundum (talk) 19:06, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Parallelism is nice, but we chose to sacrifice it to using one less bit of jargon.

I think that when editor(s) feel it's warranted, then adding some sections is a good idea. An "Alternatives" section might also be appropriate on occasion (e.g., you could get an appendectomy, but maybe a round of antibiotics would be enough; this version is done in children and that version in adults; etc.).

(Lots of people miss the advice to rearrange the sections when sensible. I think sometimes about making it large, bold, blink text, but the fact is that Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions even when it's blinking at them. So squawk if you notice someone screwing up an article's sense to make it matchy-matchy, and spread the word.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:29, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Gender neutrality in MOS:SUICIDE

Can we actually talk about whether it's necessary to use gender-neutral language in the MOS? I've seen two changes that I think are unhelpful, both involving sample text (i.e., something that could realistically turn up in an article):

• Killed himself → killed themselves
• Lost her battle with depression → lost a battle with depression

I don't think that either of these changes are helpful. "Killed themselves" makes me think of mass suicide. Most people who use the "battle" language for depression characterize it as one (life-)long battle, and "a" battle implies that there are many small fights. Also, most suicide deaths are men (so "killed himself" is statistically appropriate), and most depression involves women (so "lost her battle with depression" is statistically appropriate). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Agreed, sample text (including 'what not to do' text) doesn't need to be gender-neutral. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

• Makes sense, I think you can go ahead and make the edit, if you haven't already. CFCF (talk) 20:21, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

  Since Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)The term committed suicide is still active, I think it's best not to make any changes to that section for a while. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:25, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Self-harm

This guideline says one should not ascribe motivations like a cry for help to self-harm, while the UK's NHS page says that this can be a reason for self-harm.[3] LogicalLens (talk) 02:25, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

So? The page, which is about "when somebody intentionally damages or injures their body", does not say "It would be a good idea for an encyclopedia to say that someone killed himself as 'a cry for help'." It doesn't even say that applies to suicide.

Something can be true (e.g., a minority of people engaging in Cutting (self-harm) do so partly in the hope that someone will ask why they're injuring themselves) but not appropriate to include in an encyclopedic summary. It is very bad for public health – and more importantly, completely inappropriate for an encyclopedia – to write something like "He killed himself, but it was really a cry for help, not an intentional suicide". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:52, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

The bullet point refers only to self-harm and the current phrasing implies that a cry for help cannot be the reason for self-harm which is wrong. LogicalLens (talk) 00:23, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

The sub-bullet point refers to "self-harming behaviors", which includes but is not limited to suicide attempts. The whole statement reads:

"Suicide and self-harm are complex behaviours with multi-factorial causes. Do not oversimplify the causes of suicide. Omit information about suicide notes and simplistic speculation on causes. Some errors include...ascribing motivations to actions, such as saying that self-harming behaviours are "a cry for help" or to "send a message"."

The guideline doesn't say that it can't be a motivation for self-harming behaviors; it says that it's stupid for Wikipedia to claim that this "simplistic speculation" is the motivation for a "complex behavior with multi-factorial causes".

This is standard advice. See "Avoid terms such as “cry for help” or suggest suicide was a bid for attention...Avoid speculation about an individual’s thoughts and feelings leading up to the suicide", "Phrases to avoid: Cry for help", See also the fact that it's not always a "cry for help" anyway; power struggles and a desire for control over other people can also be involved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:32, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe we could rephrase it so that it makes clear that while this can be a reason for self-harm, one should not speculate about the motivations behind actions. LogicalLens (talk) 07:27, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

It already says that one should not speculate about the motivations, nor even reproduce sources' speculations about the motivations. I don't think we need to add "This particular speculation might sometimes be true". Editors just need to know "Don't put this particular speculation in articles". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Latin names

According to International Federation of Associations of Anatomists, proper latin names should be capitalized (and in italics), for example Rectus femoris muscle, but I don't see that in the wikipedia articles. Lmalena (talk) 15:54, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for this note.

@Andrew Dalby, do you know whether "proper latin names" means proper nouns (Rectus femoris muscle is not a proper noun) or if it means something like "all properly translated Latin names"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing @Lmalena Thanks for pinging me. I can't help much, and Lmalena doesn't (I think) link to the exact page where this rule is stated. I didn't know it, but I would love to see it, because I'm always looking for official websites on which rules for scientific Latin are given, and I didn't know till now that modern anatomists have rules like this: now I do know!

As we know, in botanical Latin there is a rather similar rule for genus and species names (both must be italicized, the genus name must have an initial capital, the species name must not). This rule is indeed followed by people writing in other languages when they give botanical Latin names in text. Evidently the anatomists are aiming at the same thing. The meaning, therefore, must be "properly defined Latin anatomical terms". Andrew Dalby 21:02, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

This document: https://www.ifaa.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/IFAA-RAT-Document-1-FIPAT-Chair-edit-220620.pdf contains the word "proper". I don't see anything on the website about capitalization, but perhaps I've used the wrong search terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:27, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, for what I understand it was originally something that was done before with all latin composite words (as biological species, or anatomical terms, or some legal terms too). A proper name is the formal/official name of an organ. It is always in latin, to avoid the variation in different translations. Lmalena (talk) 22:48, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Where is the source (e.g., the exact webpage) in which the IFAA says that the Latin names should be capitalized? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:53, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

I'm not finding any rule on uppercase or capital letters. PMID 38492195 (available via Wikipedia Library) gives examples in lower case. -- Colin°^Talk 07:49, 28 May 2025 (UTC)