Medical Wikipedia launches this year

What's that rash? Wildly scouring the web only to find medical horror stories may finally be coming to an end, thanks to Medpedia, a professionally-driven medical wiki that is being built as we speak.

Rest assured, Medpedia is not the usual "anyone can contribute, anyone can edit" website. It's a project being built and managed by a group of M.D.s plus a number of highly regarded medical schools, including Harvard and Stanford. Contributors to the site must apply and be vetted by Medpedia management before they can start filling the site with insane ramblings, a major problem that has long plagued sites like Wikipedia and which could be catastrophic in a medical scenario.

The site is scheduled to launch to the public by the end of the year, with 1,000 pages of information ranging from simple discussions of illnesses and medical conditions to detailed how-tos for surgical procedures. Detailed information about various drugs is also planned (though that topic alone is huge enough to take up its own entire wiki). All editors and contributors will have profiles on the site, outlining the background and areas of expertise. They'll also have to disclose any outside compensation received, as from pharmaceutical companies.

The current goal is to cover 13,000 drugs and 30,000 medical conditions on the site, and keep that up to date as time goes on. (A tricky problem with medical journals and textbooks is that they quickly become outdated, yet they stay on shelves for years.)

Who's funding Medpedia? In addition to the medical schools mentioned, the National Institutes of Health, FDA, and CDC have all kicked in content and possibly some cash. But to keep the site running on an ongoing basis, it will rely on that old standby, contextually sensitive advertisements. Medpedia notes that users will be able to flag inappropriate ads... but in my experience, all drug and medical-related ads tend to be inappropriate. Can't wait to see the ads on the page for sildenafil citrate.

Another concern is that not all doctors agree on treatments for conditions, which could lead to perverse turf battles, much like those that commonly occur on Wikipedia over which Star Wars character is cooler. Can we trust doctors to keep it together and produce rational content on a wiki when lives are at stake? Well, it beats going to DrKoop.com to try to figure out if that lump is an ingrown hair or a brown recluse spider bite.

LINK: Next: A Medical Wikipedia