Medical Wiki
By now you are all pretty familiar with wikipedia, well now there is medical wiki site, ganfyd.org. It is a "free medical knowledge base that anyone can read and any registered medical practitioner may edit. Ganfyd is a collaborative medical reference by medical professionals and invited non-medical experts. The site is based around the wiki format, enabling true sharing of knowledge."
GANFYD was initiated by a group of doctors and medical students who use Doctors.net.uk (AKA Ausdoctors.net) to contribute their knowledge and experience to the commonwealth.
Those associated with the site are:
- Adam Brown Microbiology Registrar in Devon and computer anorak.
- Dr Peter English CCDC and former GP
- Dr Michael Jenkinson Consultant Physician and Geriatrician in Kent
- Dr Adrian Midgley
- Rupert Millard Medical Student
- Declan O'Kane Consultant Physician and Geriatrician in Hertfordshire
- Ciaran Wasson GP and Police Surgeon in Essex
The site appears to be very new, so it is too early to determine what its impact is and how it will be received and used within the medical community. As I mentioned in a previous post (Oct. 3, 2005), "I have serious reservations of a Wiki being a source of medical information. It would be interesting to find a medical wiki site which was organized by reputable health care professionals and see how that works. " Well, here is a wiki organized by health care professionals, and I look forward to see how it plays out. Ganfyd is completely transparent as to who is associated with their site, and posts their disclaimer right at the top of their page. Since many of the things that are learned and discovered in science and medicine are done through collaboration and communication, it will be interesting to see how this site evolves.
3 Comments:
They are duplicating the Wikipedia Medicine project:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Medicine
It might be better just to contribute to the above mentioned Wikipedia Medicine instead of starting another portal.
Well, it's 3 months later and as per your original comments about Flu Wiki on Oct 3, 2005, "I, like David, "would feel better if this site were affiliated or endorsed by a public health agency or two."":
Flu Wiki is now linked by WHO (SE Asia), public health officials in NZ, and (at least) two local health departments in the US (in Colorado and NJ). It's also linked by PBS, US News, the Guardian and BBC. it is linked by at least one member of Congress on their web page.
Pseudonymnity is clearly an issue for some, but content trumps that for others. As an editor at Flu Wiki, I am also interested in how the new medical wiki makes out, and how all the online cooperative sites do in the long run.
I appreciate your interest and the continued observation of sites like ours and the new medical wiki. I, for one, am certainly willing to discuss any and all issues with anyone in the library community at any time.
Cheers!
In reply to Clinical cases and images:
We are trying hard not to duplicate the Wikipedia Medicine Project. Ganfyd is written solely by qualified medical practitioners and by selected allied experts, such as clinical pharmacists. It uses a different licensing srtucture to Wikipedia, opting for a derivation of a Creative Commons licence restricting alteration of content to registered medical professionals.
The Wikipedia Medicine Project can be edited by anybody (which is entirely reasonable and in the excellent spirit of Wikipedia as a whole).
This means that ganfyd will (hopefully) evolve into a qualified peer-reviewed medical knowledge repository. Ganfyd is not trying to be Wikipedia, but the two will hopefully complement each other.
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