Lancet Editor Forsees Wikis as the Future for Medical Journals

November 20, 2007 By Scott P. Williams [mailto:swilliams@perfuse.org]

Overview
Nashville, TN: According to Faith McClellan, senior North American editor for The Lancet, the future of how medical information will be presented and disseminated is right here, right now in the form of the wiki. In a recent talk at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, McClellan presented to a group of faculty and students that in order to survive, the world’s leading medical journals will have to take on forms more compatible with today’s web 2.0 world.

At the lecture, McLellan expressed concern that the traditionally slow-moving medical journals are quickly losing their relevance in today’s fast-paced world. Presently there is a considerable amount of lag time between the discovery of new medical information and the information’s release to the medical community and general public via publication in academic journals. Increasingly, doctors and patients alike are demanding access to the newest medical knowledge at a rate that journals are unable to provide, due to these inherent delays in publication.

McClellan suggested that in order to keep up with this demand for rapidly available information, journals will have to adapt more modern forms of media such as wikis, blikis (blogs of wikis), blogs, podcasts, and video sharing software such as YouTube. These open source media platforms allow for new information to be broadcast across the world to an essentially limitless audience in a timelier manner. Not only do these new forms of media make medical information available faster, they also tend to present the information in a more condensed and user-friendly manner by focusing on the essential points of a study.

The exclusion of the “details” from these rapid access forms of media is concerning to many medical experts, who fear that both doctors and patients may begin making important decisions with only part of the necessary information. With their tradition of rigorous academic review prior to the publication of a study, medical journals have sought to provide as complete of an evaluation of new medical information as possible. This upfront critical assessment is largely lost when new information goes directly to a rapid access forum such as a wiki or a blog. What is lost in upfront evaluation, though, may be compensated for by the public forum aspect of the new forms of media. On a wiki, bliki or blog any user that disagrees with or questions a finding can display their concerns for all to see by commenting on or editing the information presented.

It still remains to be seen how effectively our society can self-police the posting and dissemination of proper justified medical knowledge, but the recent success of websites such as Wikipedia suggests that the future of medical news lies with public forum websites rather than traditional academic journals.

To read more about McClellan’s presentation click | here