[Is it possible to enhance our expert knowledge from Wikipedia?].

BACKGROUND

The so-called new media are always a kind of challenge for training supervisors, medical students and doctors-in-training. Especially Wikipedia has a significant position for obtaining important medical information on the internet. Beside many advantages of Wikipedia, there is always the doubt about the correctness of published articles by unknown authors. Therefore the aim of our survey was to investigate the relevance of Wikipedia articles about orthopaedic and traumatological issues in the daily clinical routine.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In September 2013 two different questionnaires about medical issues were given to medical students, resident physicians and one medical specialist. The questioning was about diseases/symptoms, examinations/classifications and conservative therapy/surgery of the department of orthopaedics and traumatology. A total of 211 Wikipedia articles were evaluated. Additionally, the participants gave an subjective estimation about these articles.

RESULTS

Overall 134 of 211 separate medical items appeared on Wikipedia. The survey has proven the up-to-dateness of Wikipedia articles and their listing on the first or second position on Google. Wikipedia contains a lot of bibliographical references, high-quality images and video material. Almost half (42,5 %) of all evaluated articles are appropriate for use in medical exams and in the daily clinical work.

CONCLUSION

First and foremost young resident physicians, the so-called web 2.0 generation, are using the internet for daily work. Maybe the process of learning is developing and changing at the same time. Wikipedia gives the opportunity for everyone to acquire information for free and all over the place. The collaboration of everyone is necessary to improve the quality of medical issues on Wikipedia.