My favourite online dictionary is, without a doubt, Wordnik.

Do you think we need a social dictionary like Wordnik for medicine?

Here’s the thing. I’ve always said that the reason I’m not retaining new words is that I don’t really understand how they’re used: Wordnik remedies this problem by providing a plethora of contextual clues. Here’s a rundown of my favourite features using the examples of “fibromyalgia” and “h1n1”:

• Examples. This section pulls the oddest sentences (not intentionally, I’m sure, but the result is often very original) featuring your word from a vast array of unconventional sources, including CNN transcripts, diary entries, and classic literature.

The worst part about having the fibromyalgia is looking foward to being able to go to bed. —bettyalready Diary Entry

WEIL: I would say that fibromyalgia is a subset of chronic pain syndrome. —CNN Transcript Nov 10, 2004

Lyrica for nerve pain and fibromyalgia is now a $2.5 billion-a-year product, but smoking cessation treatment Chantix hasn’t lived up to expectations because of links to depression and suicidal thoughts. —Kansas City Star: Front Page

• On Twitter. The latest tweets containing your word. If we could somehow filter out the spammy tweets, how great would this tool be to gauge the hive mind!

• Flickr. These are some photos for h1n1. Check out the masks!

• Related. Sort of like a thesaurus. I know it looks a bit sparse (there are more under the Related tab), but compared to typical online dictionaries (some of which don’t even contain fibromyalgia), this is pretty good!

• Stats. Charts and graphs showing frequency of occurrence, punctuation patterns, and more.
• Comments. There are some good social networking features like the ability to favourite, comment, and create lists of words.

Plus, Wordnik has all the typical features of a dictionary including definitions from multiple sources, pronunciations, and etymologies.

Now, I know there are a lot of medical dictionaries out there. It also seems that communities such as PatientsLikeMe have sections that are starting to look like social medical dictionaries – for example, a search for Lyrica pulls up related forum posts, and detailed information like side effects that Wordnik does not have (click to enlarge):

Yet I feel that there might be room for something more “social” than the rigid definitions on The Free Dictionary’s Medical Dictionary (although it’s pretty good) yet more systematically organized than the PatientsLikeMe forums.

Another reason: as much as patients are being empowered by the internet, I wonder if the adventure for most even gets as far as signing up for a website like PatientsLikeMe. If a reliable, crowd-sourced, and dynamic medical dictionary could show up as the number one hit on Google for their queries, perhaps useful medical knowledge would reach the most people most quickly.

In the meantime, Wordnik is actually having a 2010 Developer’s Challenge right now, so if you’re inspired by this post, get cracking and maybe the medical community will one day owe you a debt of gratitude!

Tell me a story and I will follow. Tell me your story and I am so on board it’s ridiculous.

I work at a children’s hospital that has a blog. But Bloorview Kids Rehab does more than post. It tells stories.

• “Lena distracts herself by threading bravery beads onto necklaces — each marking a painful procedure or special accomplishment.” [+]
• “Taryn, a girl 10 days his junior, is Jake’s girlfriend. This incredible blond-haired girl with deep dimples on both cheeks donates all her tooth fairy money to PMD research so she can help find a cure for Jake’s disease.” [+]

Note that it’s not just the facts; it’s the style. It’s like being there. Parents of children with disabilities even guest-post:

When my son with disabilities was younger, I often felt a failure because I still grieved for him. Why did I feel sad, mad, guilty and anxious – when I adored my son and he brought me such delight?

And that makes the BLOOM blog stand out.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about this storytelling business.

I just finished reading Tribes by Seth Godin, which argues that leadership requires a manifesto. I think that the manifesto is a story. It resonates because it is so intensely personal.

Who are we? How did we get here? What will we achieve?

One facet of Medicine 2.0 is caught up in the toys: like iPad for EMR – Twitter for pandemic-tracking — even my own research, an emotion recognition engine.

But we must not forget that the central unit, the ideal granularity of our work is always the patient. The patient, who has the need. Who lives the story.

The story is important.

Lest technology – heck, anything – subsume the patient, we need to tell better stories.

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“Geography is destiny in medicine.” –Jack Lord, MD

In my undergrad English lit courses, I heard a lot about “character is destiny”. Which is a fancy way of blowing things out of proportion – e.g., Romeo and Juliet didn’t die via the quality of being “star-crossed”, but because they were super emo.

Well, this week, I watched a TED talk by Bill Davenhall (below) that claimed “geography is destiny”.

This idea is not so exaggerated. Just watch it (9 min.):

What it says: Where you’ve lived may determine how healthy you are.

There’s the classic equation:

health = genetics + lifestyle + environment

and of the three aspects, Davenhall argues that “environment” has been ignored for far too long by physicians.

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Update (Jan. 15th, 2010): Thanks to Dr. Vartabedian (@Doctor_V) for featuring this campaign on his blog 33charts!

Here it is: I snapped a photo of the Privacy-In-Practice posters that University Health Network (UHN) has posted in its hospitals.

Looks like “Facebook, Twitter or blogs” are the big shots here. Do you think there are any other popular social media avenues that deserve to be listed as well?

For more information, see the post I wrote about seeing these posters for the first time last semester.