List of medical wikis
This is a list of medical wikis, collaboratively-editable websites that focus on medical information. Many of the most popular medical wikis take the form of encyclopedias, with a separate article for each medical term. Some of these websites, such as WikiDoc and Radiopaedia, are editable by anyone, while others, such as Ganfyd, restrict editing access to professionals. The majority of them have content available only in English.
The largest and most popular general encyclopedia, Wikipedia, also hosts a significant amount of health and medical information.
Clinfowiki
| Owner | Oregon Health and Science University |
|---|---|
| Created by | Dean F. Sittig |
| Editor | Vishnu Mohan |
| URL | clinfowiki |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Required for editors; optional for readers. |
| Launched | June 27, 2005 |
Content license | GNU Free Documentation License v1.2 |
Clinfowiki is devoted to topics in biomedical informatics and is maintained by the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology at Oregon Health and Science University.[1] Dean F. Sittig launched the site on 27 June 2005, and as of 12 January 2017, Vishnu Mohan was its editor.[2]
EyeWiki
| Available in | English |
|---|---|
| Owner | American Academy of Ophthalmology |
| URL | eyewiki |
| Launched | 7 July 2010 |
Content license | Allows personal and noncommercial use |
EyeWiki is a medical wiki community and online medical wiki encyclopedia, launched in July 2010 by ophthalmologists supported by the American Academy of Ophthalmology.[3] The wiki provides information about eye diseases and their management, including medical and surgical treatments.
EyeWiki content is created and edited only by ophthalmologists and ophthalmologists in training.[4]
HemOnc.org
 | |
Type of site | Professional medical reference wiki |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Created by | Peter Yang, MD |
| URL | hemonc |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Free; editing requires credentialing |
| Launched | November 2011 |
| Current status | Active |
HemOnc.org is a hematology/oncology wiki which was originally created by oncologists to provide information about chemotherapy regimens and hematology/oncology medications. Its contributors are practicing physicians and other medical professionals. Its current focus is to provide clinicians referenced information about chemotherapy regimens, medications used in hematology/oncology, and to allow medical professionals to share any useful references or medical information with each other to improve their clinical & academic practice.
HemOnc.org runs on MediaWiki software and also Semantic MediaWiki. Anyone may sign up for an account and suggest additional information to be added. Editing privileges are activated for account holders whose credentials are verified. The content is not under an open license.
Data about HemOnc.org has been presented at the 2013 ASCO Quality Care Symposium,[5] and it has been profiled in the oncology press.[6][7] The website's chemotherapy regimen database has also been used for academic research projects.[8]
Radiopaedia
Type of site | Wiki |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Investling.com[9] |
| URL | radiopaedia |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | No |
| Launched | December 2005 |
| Current status | May 2020: Had 13,958 articles with 36,840 cases[10] |
Radiopaedia is a bespoke wiki-based international collaborative radiology educational resource with reference articles, radiology images, and patient cases.[11] It is aimed at registrars, residents and consultant radiology staff.[12] An iPhone/iPad application was released in 2009.
Users of the site are free to add and edit content as well as to maintain their own case library. In an attempt to reduce vandalism and peer-review content, an editorial team moderates changes to ensure that the presented material is as accurate and relevant as possible.[13]
WikiAnesthesia
Type of site | Wiki |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Headquarters | Palo Alto, California |
| Owner | WikiAnesthesia Foundation |
| Created by | Chris Rishel, Barrett Larson |
| URL | wikianesthesia |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Required for editing |
| Launched | 2020 |
| Current status | November 2021: 407 content pages |
WikiAnesthesia is a collaboratively-developed anesthesia knowledge base whose educational mission is to provide the global anesthesia community with a free, open-access, crowd-sourced repository of anesthesia knowledge.[14] Content is provided by anesthesia providers and covers a wide range of topics in the field of anesthesiology.
WikiDoc
Type of site | Wiki |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Boston |
| Owner | WikiDoc Foundation |
| Created by | C. Michael Gibson |
| URL | wikidoc.org |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Yes |
| Launched | December 2005 |
| Current status | November 2013: Had 109,199 content pages |
WikiDoc (alternatively spelled Wiki Doc) is a medical wiki encyclopedia[15] where contributors are not required to have credentials in a biomedical field. WikiDoc was started in December 2005 by C. Michael Gibson, of Harvard Medical School.[16][17] The original content came from Gibson's chief residency notes, board review notes, and content from a variety of copyleft sources including The U.S. National Library of Medicine, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Wikipedia and Ask Dr Wiki.[18] WikiDoc differs from Wikipedia in the following ways:[19] it is oriented more to medical professionals,[20] and has medical news, a toolbar to search internet on the right hand side to gather articles, guidelines and slides, a toolbar on the left to see what page most people looked at next, and a board review course (in Beta testing).
WikEM
Type of site | Wiki |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles |
| Owner | WikEM Foundation |
| Created by | Ross Donaldson |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | No |
| Launched | 2009 |
| Current status | October 2016: 3,176 content pages |
WikEM is a wiki-based website and mobile application oriented towards emergency medicine clinicians.[21] It started as a database created from notes and checklists of residents at the Harbor-UCLA emergency medicine residency program, but is now open to all clinical providers.[22][23] WikEM was launched in 2009.[22] Its mobile application is available for iOS and Android, and functions in an offline environment. It calls itself The Global Emergency Medicine Wiki.
WikiLectures
 Screenshot of WikiLectures.eu | |
Type of site | Wiki for medical students |
|---|---|
| Available in | English, Czech |
| Headquarters | Prague |
| Owner | Medical Faculties Network |
| URL | WikiLectures.eu |
| Commercial | No |
| Current status | September 2022: 3561 content pages |
WikiLectures is a collaborative project focused on creating and storing medical study materials. It is developed by students and teachers from various Czech and Slovak medical faculties. WikiLectures is part of the project MEFANET, a network linking medical schools in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.[24]
Editors of WikiLectures take care of promoting the authors, editorial process contributions, technical support, WikiLectures structure and ensure the safety of the project. WikiLectures contain articles, notes, prepared exam topics, guides for practitioners, and study books. WikiLectures are constantly growing.[25] The articles are written by medical students, faculty professionals and doctors. The administration and security is provided by the editorial board. Articles in WikiLectures are regularly checked by editors and experts in various branches of medicine. Articles checked by teachers are always marked by a special sign.
WikiSM
Type of site | Wiki for sports medicine |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | John Kiel |
| URL | WikiSM.org |
| Commercial | No |
| Current status | 1,198 content pages[26] |
Content licence | CC-BY-SA |
WikiSM is an open access sports medicine wiki. They welcome all sports medicine physicians and other members of the sports medicine team (including allied health) to register and become contributors.
WikiMSK
Type of site | Wiki for Musculoskeletal Medicine |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Headquarters | New Zealand |
| Owner | Jeremy Steinberg |
| URL | WikiMSK.org |
| Commercial | No |
| Launched | June 2020 |
| Current status | 571 content pages[27] |
Content licence | CC-BY-SA |
WikiMSK is dedicated to musculoskeletal medicine, and is based in New Zealand. It is affiliated with the New Zealand College of Musculoskeletal Medicine (NZCMM), and is physician directed. It is designed around a peer review process and currently only members of the NZCMM are able to create and edit articles. The majority of the content is open access to unregistered users.
Wikimedica
Type of site | Wiki for medicine |
|---|---|
| Available in | French |
| Headquarters | Quebec City |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| URL | Wikimedi.ca |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional |
| Users | 1800+ |
| Launched | 2017 |
| Current status | May 2022: 1800+ content pages |
Content licence | CC-BY-SA |
Wikimedica is a general evidence based medical wiki.[28] Based in Canada, it aims at providing French language health professionals with an open access and dynamic knowledge base to allow for better and more accurate patient care. The wiki is open to all for reading but can only be edited by professionals.
It makes use of Semantic MediaWiki to structure medical knowledge for the Semantic Web, expert systems and artificial intelligence applications.
Defunct
AskDrWiki
Type of site | Expert medical wiki project |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Cleveland, Ohio |
| Owner | Open Access Medical Informatics Group |
| Created by | Kenny Civello, Brian Jefferson |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Required with credentialing |
| Launched | August 2006 |
| Current status | Website no functional. In November 2013, there were 2,111 pages and 1,408 content pages. In February 2015, there were still the same number of pages. |
AskDrWiki was a medical wiki encyclopedia created by Cleveland Clinic Cardiology Fellows Kenny Civello and Brian Jefferson. The project was started as a response to the lack of free online medical information found in several community hospitals and was created to form a repository of cardiovascular information that could be readily accessed for reference. It was launched in August 2006. The site now holds medical review articles, clinical notes, pearls, and medical images. The wiki allows anyone with a medical background to contribute or edit medical articles, of which there are over 2,000 as of 2013.
The purpose of the site was to provide reliable and easily accessed health information for the medical community including physicians, nurses, and medical students. The information published on the site is not meant to supersede medical training but to serve as a repository of medical review articles to give medical professionals an online source where they can review medical topics. The website is similar to Wikipedia because it runs on MediaWiki software allowing users to add and edit articles, but differs in that all users must be credentialed based on their medical training before they are allowed to publish. Its goal is not to compete with Wikipedia regarding consumer health-related topics, but to serve as an expert medical wiki and provide a source of up-to-date medical information for healthcare providers.
In December 2006, AskDrWiki was referenced in a British Medical Journal article, "How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine",[29] as one of the early adopters of using video hosting sites such as YouTube and Google Video to host medical videos. It was also discussed in a 2007 Nature Medicine article on medical wikis.[30] AskDrWiki has been featured in other media including The Plain Dealer,[31] Medical Economics[32] and The American Medical Association News.[33]
As of February 2015, although still online, the wiki had minimal ongoing contributions, with only 3 edits in 2014.[34] As of March 2022 the site was down.
Ganfyd
Type of site | Wiki |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Revenue | nil |
| URL | ganfyd |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Required |
| Launched | November 2005 |
| Current status | October 2019: Defunct |
Ganfyd was a medical wiki community and encyclopedia,[15] created in November 2005 by a group of doctors working in the United Kingdom. Only registered medical practitioners or persons working under their direction, and a small number of invited non-medical specialists, could edit Ganfyd articles. The intention was to make the material reliable enough for professional medical use. As of 2013 it has over 8000 content pages. As of May 2020 it is no longer active.[35]
Medcyclopaedia
Medcyclopaedia, [36] The Encyclopaedia of Medical Imaging,[37] was a wiki encyclopedia of medical imaging used in radiology and radiography.[38] As of December 2012, the site no longer exists.
The encyclopedia was the result of a collaboration of the Nycomed Amersham Intercontinental Continuing Education in Radiology Institute (NICER Institute), Sweden, Department of Radiology, Lund University, Sweden, and Amersham Health, Oslo, Norway. It was provided and copyrighted by the healthcare unit of General Electric corporation. Retrieval of images (other than thumbnails) required registration.
The website contained 3,600 pages before closing down.
Medpedia
Type of site | Wiki |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Medpedia Inc., Ooga Labs |
| Revenue | Lost money |
| URL | Medpedia.com |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Required |
| Launched | 17 February 2009 |
| Current status | Closed January 2013 |
Medpedia was a collaborative project launched on 17 February 2009. Its aim was to create an open access medical wiki encyclopedia[39] in association with Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School, the United Kingdom's National Health Service (NHS)[40] as well as other contributors.[41] Content was licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) license and ran on modified MediaWiki software. Harvard Medical School did not have a role in, nor was it responsible for, the content that appeared in the “wiki” section of Medpedia.
Anyone with medical knowledge was welcome to become part of Medpedia's community. However, to qualify to edit or contribute to the main content, approved editors needed an M.D., D.O., or Ph.D. in a biomedical field. Others could contribute by writing in suggestions for changes to the site using the "Make a suggestion" link at the top of each page. An approved editor could review and potentially add submitted suggestions.[42]
Medpedia was composed of three primary components:
- A collaborative encyclopedia (also referred to as the "knowledge base")
- A Network & Directory for health professionals and organizations
- Communities of Interest where medical professionals and non-professionals come together to discuss topics of interest.
A 2012 literature review of 50 academic journal articles about the use of social media by clinicians[43] remarked that Medpedia had "launched in 2009 with substantial institutional backing" but that the authors "did not find articles reporting success metrics" for it.
Around January 2013 the site abruptly closed. Medpedia's founder James Currier acknowledged that this was permanent in a blog post in July 2013.[44]
WikiSurgery
Type of site | Wiki |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | International Journal of Surgery |
| Commercial | No |
| Launched | September 2006 |
| Current status | November 2013: Not operating |
WikiSurgery is a collaboratively-built online encyclopedia hosted by the International Journal of Surgery. As of November 2013, the site's homepage is still up but none of the rest of the website is viewable.
References
- "Main Page". Clinfowiki. 30 April 2017. Retrieved 22 September 2017.
- "Clinfowiki:About". Clinfowiki. 12 January 2017. Retrieved 22 September 2017.
- "American Academy of Ophthalmology Launches EyeWiki" (Press release). American Academy of Ophthalmology. July 7, 2010. Archived from the original on December 10, 2010. Retrieved August 6, 2012.
- "EyeWiki". eyewiki.org. Retrieved 2016-08-19.
- Peter C. Yang, Andrew Cowan, Jeremy Warner. Usability evaluation of HemOnc.org, a collaborative online hematology/oncology reference. J Clin Oncol 31, 2013 (suppl 31; abstr 244). 2013 ASCO Quality Care Symposium abstract 244.
- Warner JL, Cowan AJ, Hall AC, Yang PC (2015). "HemOnc.org: A Collaborative Online Knowledge Platform for Oncology Professionals". J Oncol Pract. 11 (3): e336-50. doi:10.1200/JOP.2014.001511. PMC 5706141. PMID 25736385.
- Oncology Times: How Health IT is Changing the Practice of Oncology: HemOnc.org —Sharing Oncology Information Easily., accessed 2/8/2015.
- Warner J, Yang P, Alterovitz G. Automated synthesis and visualization of a chemotherapy treatment regimen network. Stud Health Technol Inform. 2013;192:62-6.
- "Investling". investling.com.
- "Home". radiopaedia.org.
- "Radiopaedia.org, the wiki-based collaborative Radiology resource". Radiopaedia.
- "Radiopaedia: a wiki for radiology". ScienceRoll. Archived from the original on 2015-03-15.
- Jones, Jeremy. "Editorial team | Radiology Reference Article | Radiopaedia.org". Radiopaedia.
- "WikiAnesthesia". wikianesthesia.org. WikiAnesthesia Foundation.
- Ginn S (August 2010). "Evidence based mental health and Web 2.0". Evid Based Ment Health. 13 (3): 69–72. doi:10.1136/ebmh.13.3.69. PMID 20682812. S2CID 36358650.
- "Editorial Board - wikidoc". www.wikidoc.org.
- Daniel S. Mojon; Melissa L. Rethlefsen; Rothman, David J. (2008). Internet Cool Tools for Physicians. Berlin: Springer. pp. 114. ISBN 978-3-540-76381-9.
- Acknowledgement and Attribution Regarding Sources of Content, WikiDoc
- "Copyright Battle Looms for Docs Who 'Grew up Google' - ABC News". Archived from the original on 2009-04-23. Retrieved 2011-01-16.
- Brulet, A.; Llorca, G.; Letrilliart, L. (Feb 2015). "Medical Wikis Dedicated to Clinical Practice: A Systematic Review". J Med Internet Res. 17 (2): e48. doi:10.2196/jmir.3574. PMC 4392552. PMID 25700482.
- "WikEM". www.wikem.org. OpenEM Foundation. April 29, 2014. Retrieved June 23, 2014.
- Castro, Harvey (April 2010). "Wikipedia and the iPhone". Emergency Medicine News. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc. 32 (4). Retrieved June 23, 2014.
- Lewis, Tom (January 10, 2013). "WikEM app brings free emergency medicine notes to all". iMedicalApps. iMedicalApps. Retrieved June 23, 2014.
- "MEFANET: WikiLectures". Archived from the original on 2013-04-03. Retrieved 2012-03-16.
- "Global Statistics - WikiLectures".
- "Statistics - WikiSM". wikism.org. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
- "Special:Statistics". WikiMSK. 20 October 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
- "À propos". Wikimedica (in French). Retrieved 2022-05-04.
- Giustini, Dean (December 21, 2006). "How Web 2.0 is changing medicine". BMJ. 333 (7582): 1283–1284. doi:10.1136/bmj.39062.555405.80. PMC 1761169. PMID 17185707. S2CID 10066923 – via www.bmj.com.
- Keim, B (Mar 2007). "WikiMedia". Nature Medicine. 13 (3): 231–3. doi:10.1038/nm0307-231. PMID 17342106. S2CID 26479238.
- "A Wikipedia-style site for Medical Information". Archived from the original on 2012-10-18. Retrieved 2019-09-18.
- "MJH Life Sciences® | Informing Healthcare Professionals •". MJH Life Sciences.
- Physician Wikis:Do-it-Yourself Textbooks
- Ask Dr Wiki's recent changes page Archived 2011-09-14 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 2/8/2015, showing only 3 edits in 2014 and none since July 2014.
- "Home". ganfyd.org.
- "Medcyclopaedia - Medcyclo.com". January 18, 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-01-18.
- The Encyclopaedia of Medical Imaging. 8 vols, Lund, Sweden: NICER Institute/ISIS Medical Media, 2001. ISBN 82-91942-00-5. Hardcover
- "The Encyclopaedia of Medical Imaging. 8 vols[book review]". Radiology. Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). 227 (2): 500. 2003. doi:10.1148/radiol.2272032510. ISSN 0033-8419.
- "Medpedia Launches Giant Wikipedia-Like Medical And Health Encyclopedia". medicalnewstoday.com. 2008-07-23. Retrieved 2008-07-28.
- Cross, Michael (2008-07-24). "NHS Choices will need to justify its £80m price tag". London: guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-07-28.
- Moore, Matthew (2008-07-23). "Medpedia, the medical Wikipedia, allows patients to diagnose themselves". London: telegraph.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2013-05-05. Retrieved 2008-07-28.
- Nye, Calley (2008-07-22). "MedPedia Is Wikifying the Medical Search Space". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2008-07-28.
- von Muhlen, M., & Ohno-Machado, L. (2012). Reviewing social media use by clinicians. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 19(5), 777–81. doi:10.1136/amiajnl-2012-000990
- "Medpedia, the Medical Wikipedia, is Dead. And we Missed its Funeral… Laika's MedLibLog 12 July 2013". 2013-07-12.