Researchers say physicians should contribute to Wikipedia pages on medical topics.

The AP (4/30, Metz) reports, "Researchers are suggesting that doctors could be spending more time writing and editing Wikipedia pages on medical topics, despite questions that have been raised about the collaborative online encyclopedia's credibility." According to a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, "medical professionals should recognize that Wikipedia has become a major online source of health information for consumers." For the study, researchers "measured how often Wikipedia entries showed up among the top results from main web search engines" when they "entered health-related terms." They found that "in 71 percent to 85 percent of search words tested at various search engines, Wikipedia came up within the first 10 results." And, because "Wikipedia's editing policy" allows "anyone to submit or make changes to articles," the researchers said that physicians, "along with patient groups and associations, can help improve quality at Wikipedia by participating."