The things that happen to our posts...

[Neuron]

Like many of you, SDN is not the only place online that I use to waste the little free time I have.

I read a few blogs too.

Today, over at Overlawyered , a popular blog on our legal system, I stumbled upon an entry that discusses something we were having a go at a few months ago. It concerned the unfortunate Dr. Merenstein, the family doc, now at Hopkins, who was sued because he followed evidence based guidelines on prostate screening. The folks at overlawyered were providing an update to this case.

In the update, they mention that the case "continues to be the source of discussion in the medical community".

They continue:

Doctors are understandably outraged; there is even commentary in Germany . (Robert L. Edsall, "The Evidence-Based Medicine Heresy", Family Practice Management, Feb. 2004; J. Michael Pontious, "Profoundly Disturbed", Oklahoma State Medical Association Journal, Jan. 2004; "Kevin, M.D." blog, May 20). Dr. Merenstein briefly follows up in response to a number of letters to JAMA. ("Evidence-Based Medicine on Trial?Reply", JAMA. 2004;291:1698).

On a whim, I thought I'd check out the German article, half-expecting it to be completely Greek (well, German) to me.

What I found was different, though. It was an, ahem, reasonably well written thing, which started to seem oddly familiar after a time.

And then I understood why.

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[neutropeniaboy]

On a whim, I thought I'd check out the German article, half-expecting it to be completely Greek (well, German) to me.

What I found was different, though. It was an, ahem, reasonably well written thing, which started to seem oddly familiar after a time.

And then I understood why.

Oh, boy.

What a gas! And I'm sure those German's think of their own as pretty original...

 

[Neuron]

Net based plagiarism. Not that I care, I find it funny more than anything. But it goes to show that what they say is right: the moment something touches the web, it will never disappear.

Even posts on SDN

 

[Neuron]

It occurs to me that some of the more "serious" posters, who seem to put a lot of care (and words) into their contributions, may find their stuff elsewhere the internet, perhaps even as "articles".

I remember some of Juddson's and JohnHolmes' posts on the malpractice issue in particular that seemed pretty thought out.

They might want to start syndicating

 

[freelancewriter]

Wow, fascinating. Great sleuthing, Neuron!

I used to work in recruitment marketing and writing at a private college. As part of research, I was on the mailing list for 100+ other colleges as a high school student. There were a few instances where I saw my own work stolen verbatim in other colleges brochures, letters and e-mails.

Plagiarism and copyright violations are even more common in the journalistic community, IMHO. Journalistic integrity just isn't what it used to be.

 

[Neuron]

I used to work in recruitment marketing and writing at a private college. As part of research, I was on the mailing list for 100+ other colleges as a high school student. There were a few instances where I saw my own work stolen verbatim in other colleges brochures, letters and e-mails.

Plagiarism and copyright violations are even more common in the journalistic community, IMHO. Journalistic integrity just isn't what it used to be.

I'm not surprised at all. I'm sure the Blairs and Gilpins are merely the prominent tips of the proverbial iceberg. The web makes it almost unavoidable.

Oh, and I wasn't sleuthing or anything. I just happened upon it.

 

[southerndoc]

Lee should bust them with their own medicine. By quoting SDN, they are commiting a copyright violation, so I really think Lee should sue them.

 

[EvoDevo]

Brilliant, Neuron! You (or Lee, or both) ought to be entitled to a payout.

Thank you for your insightful thoughts regarding this (very scary) case.

 

[Neuron]

My pleasure, buddy.

 

[Winged Scapula]

I agree - if indeed, the original post belongs to Neuron (as I cannot find a date on the German commentary), this is a copyright violation.

However, I could not find/decipher the Administration or Webmaster of this site. Does anyone read enough German to help out? Since Lee is on sabbatical for a couple of weeks, I have taken over Admin duties and would be happy to tackle this.

 

[Annette]

Verklagt werden trotz "Evidence based medicine"
Beitrag eingesandt von DRMEDUSA am 25.04.2004 21:30:04


The date is April 25, 2004

As for what the rest of it is, I have no idea.

 

[freelancewriter]

My German is quite rusty - haven't studied it since high school.

The article is dated 25.04.2004, which is April 25, 2004. I'm not really sure if it's an article, or a posting in a forum. Again, my German is very rusty. (There are forums on the German site: see left menu "Foren" which means forums.

From what I can decipher, the person who "wrote" the article or forum post is a German working or training in the U.S.

Altavista's Babelfish translator might be of help/interest, but since their instant translations are done be computer, they are notoriously rough. (You just paste in the URL and pick the language to translate from and to.)
http://babelfish.altavista.com/

It could very well be an article, as the site accepts submissions and includes "autorenrichtlinien" (submission guidelines and a stylesheet). To read that page, go to http://www.aerzteblatt.de/v4/archiv/artikel.asp?id=40391 and copy and paste the URL into Babelfish. Kimberli, note that the guidelines page includes contact info at the bottom.

Ironically, the person who put that article/post on the German site may be reading these very posts right now!

Hopefully someone has better German language skills than I do.

 

[tkim]

The German site accepted the submission from 'drmedusa' three days after Neuron posted it on SDN.

Neuron, contact the German website and give them the link to your article. Should cause gobs of embarrassment, if nothing else.

 

[freelancewriter]

There's no drmedusa or medusa that are members of this forum. That rules out the obvious...

 

[Annette]

Babelfish translation:
physician sheet
Forum "Arbeiten abroad - USA"
Sued despite "Evidence are medicine" based; Contribution sent in of DRMEDUSA at 25.04.2004 the 21:30:04
Here an interesting article over a new case in the USA (source JAMA). It concerns here that a Residency was sued program by greedy attorneys and stupid jurors despite correct EBM....trotz 1a documentation in the patient sheet!!!

 

[Winged Scapula]

Thanks guys...I've written an email to the address at the bottom of the submissions page. Not sure if its the webmaster but hopefully it will get the attention on someone at a senior level.

 

[Julian_d]

It is a forum post, so I don't think that the german site actively "accepted" the text. If you do a search on the site for this drmedusa guy you find quite a few forum posts and this is one of them. This guy quotes Neuron's text as "an interesting article regarding a new case..." and so on (babelfish actually gave an ok translation if you have a little imagination...)DrMedUsa just "forgot" to mention where he found the text. I don't interpret it as if he's presenting it as a piece written by himself. It's obviously still wrong to use the text without permission, though... It'll be interesting to hear what the german forum admin thinks about this...

 

[Winged Scapula]

It is a forum post, so I don't think that the german site actively "accepted" the text. If you do a search on the site for this drmedusa guy you find quite a few forum posts and this is one of them. This guy quotes Neuron's text as "an interesting article regarding a new case..." and so on (babelfish actually gave an ok translation if you have a little imagination...)DrMedUsa just "forgot" to mention where he found the text. I don't interpret it as if he's presenting it as a piece written by himself. It's obviously still wrong to use the text without permission, though... It'll be interesting to hear what the german forum admin thinks about this...

I'll keep ya informed if I hear from them.

 

[Winged Scapula]

The German site in question has added a link to this thread. Their text does make it sound as if the link is to the original JAMA article, so I've asked them to clarify that but its a definite step in the right direction. NO idea if they've contacted their "author" who submitted the thread.