Trust your doctor, not Wikipedia, say scientists

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in science on (#3N4)
story imageConcerns over errors in health articles on Wikipedia have caused some scientists to warn against using the free encyclopedia to self diagnose medical conditions.
Most Wikipedia articles representing the 10 most costly medical conditions in the United States contain many errors when checked against standard peer-reviewed sources. Caution should be used when using Wikipedia to answer questions regarding patient care.

Re: An Encyclopedia Is Not A Medical Journal. Film at 11. (Score: 1, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-30 12:44 (#1Z4)

I remember the days when Wikipedia was "not to be used as a reference". People still pay lip service to this principle, but increasingly I see myself and others using Wikipedia as the first go-to-place to quickly get up to speed on something unfamiliar. One can progress to more "authoritative" texts, of course, but in so many cases the Wikipedia summaries are sufficient. I actually think the new mantra could be "you can use Wikipedia for a reference and you will only be penalized for doing so if it is shown that a given Wikipedia summary was wrong."
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