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James Heilman

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James Heilman
Heilman in 2015
Born1979 or 1980 (age 43–44)
Saskatchewan,Canada
EducationUniversity of Saskatchewan
(BS,MD)
Medical career
ProfessionPhysician
FieldEmergency medicine
Institutions
James Heilman introducing himself
recorded August 2017

James M. Heilman(born 1979 or 1980) is a Canadianemergency physician,Wikipedian,and advocate for the improvement ofWikipedia's health-related content.He encourages other clinicians to contribute to the online encyclopedia.[1][2]

With the Wikipedia usernameDoc James,Heilman is an active contributor toWikiProject Medicineand a volunteer Wikipedia administrator. He was the president ofWikimedia Canadabetween 2010 and 2013, and founded and was formerly the president of Wiki Project Med Foundation.[3][4][5][6][7]He is also the founder of WikiProject Medicine's Medicine Translation Task Force.[8]In June 2015, he was elected to theWikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees,a position which he held until he was removed on December 28, 2015.[9][10][11]Heilman was re-elected to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees in May 2017.[12]His term ended in November 2021.[13]

Heilman is a clinical assistant professor at the department of emergency medicine at theUniversity of British Columbia,[14][15]and the head of the department of emergency medicine atEast Kootenay Regional HospitalinCranbrook, British Columbia,where he lives.[1][16]

Early life and education

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Heilman was born in 1979 or 1980,[16]nearCochin, Saskatchewan.[17]He graduated from theUniversity of Saskatchewanin 2000 with aBachelor of Sciencedegree in anatomy, and he subsequently earned hismedical degreethere in 2003.[1]He then completed hisfamily medicineresidency inBritish Columbiafrom 2003 to 2005.[18]Heilman currently holds a certificate of added competency inemergency medicinewith theCollege of Family Physicians of Canada.[19]

Medical career

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Heilman worked atMoose Jaw Union Hospital,a hospital inMoose Jaw,Saskatchewan, until 2010, when he began working atEast Kootenay Regional Hospital,[1][20]where, in October 2012, he was appointed head of the department ofemergency medicine.[1]In 2014, he told theCranbrook Daily Townsmanthat the emergency department at East Kootenay saw an average of 22,000 patients each year.[21]

Research

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As of May 2014, Heilman was working on a study with Samir Grover, of theUniversity of Toronto,which would assign medical students to take a test using either Wikipedia or medical textbooks to determine which is more accurate.[22]Later that year, Heilman co-authored a version of the Wikipedia article fordengue feverin thepeer-reviewedjournalOpen Medicine.[23]Heilman also worked on a study withMicrosoftwhich found that in the three countries where the2013–2016 Ebola outbreakhad the largest impact, Wikipedia was the most popular source for information about the disease.[24]In 2015, Heilman and Andrew West published a study which found that the number of Wikipedia editors who focused on editing medical articles decreased by 40 percent from 2008 to 2013.[25][26][why?]These results, together with other detailed analyses about the production and consumption of medical content on Wikipedia, were published by theJournal of Medical Internet Researchin 2015.[27]

Wikipedia and Wikimedia activities

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Question and answer session with Heilman about editing Wikipedia at theUniversity of British Columbia

Since the beginning of his activity as a contributor to medicine-related Wikipedia articles in 2008, Heilman has been promoting the improvement of medical content by encouraging fellow physicians to take part.[1]He became interested in editing Wikipedia on a slow night shift, when he looked up the article onobesityand found that it contained many errors. "I realized that I could fix it. I made a huge number of edits and improved the quality a great deal. I sort of became hooked from there," he told theHamilton Spectatorin 2011.[2]In 2016, he stated that he edited medical articles on Wikipedia for about 60 hours a week.[28]His time spent editing decreased to 20 hours a week in 2020, during theCOVID-19 pandemic.[17]

Heilman takes part in an initiative through Wiki Project Med Foundation withTranslators Without Borders,working to improve and translate English Wikipedia medical articles of top importance into minority languages.[29][30][31]The Wiki Project Med Foundation has started a collaboration with theUniversity of California, San Franciscoas a recruit for scientifically literate editors, by giving students college credit for improving medicine-related Wikipedia pages.[32]In 2014, the Wiki Project Med Foundation also partnered with theCochrane Collaboration,with the goal of improving the reliability and accuracy of information on Wikipedia. With regard to this partnership, Heilman said, "The way Wikipedia works is that all content is to stand entirely on the references that are listed. If the best quality sources are used to write Wikipedia there's a good chance that Wikipedia will contain the best quality information."[33]

Heilman spoke atWikimania 2014,where he said that 93 percent of medical students use Wikipedia, and argued that "fixing the internet" is now a critical task for anyone who cares about healthcare.[34]

Ebola contributions

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By reviewing and correcting medical content in the manner promoted by Heilman (and with many of his contributions), in Wikipedia articles like that aboutEbola,Wikipedia has become a source of information to the general public, thus being regarded among respected sites run by theWorld Health Organization[35]and theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention,[36]covering the topic.[3][37]Heilman reduced the time he spent working in theemergency departmentso he could spend more time updating this page.[38]In 2014, he told theCranbrook Daily Townsmanthat with respect to Wikipedia's coverage of Ebola, "The big thing is emphasizing what we know, making sure that minor concerns don’t get blown out of proportion."[39]He also said that, despite rumours to the contrary, there was no evidence that the disease had become airborne, and that Ebola had caused far fewer deaths than other conditions such asmalariaandgastroenteritis.[39]

Rorschach test images

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In 2009, Heilman, who was then a resident of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan,[40]addedpublic domainimages of the ink blots used in theRorschach testto the Wikipedia article on the subject, and concerned psychologists said that this could invalidate the tests.[20][41][42]Some psychologists stated the test had "already lost its popularity and usefulness."[20][42]In an interview withThe New York Times,Heilman stated that he added the entire set because a debate about a single image seemed absurd and psychologists' fears were unfounded.[43]Appearing onCanada AMon July 31, 2009, Heilman also said that "This information [i.e. the inkblots] is encyclopedic. This is what people expect to see when they see this page."[44]In August 2009, two Canadian psychologists filed complaints about Heilman to his local doctors' organization; Heilman called the complaints "intimidation tactics".[45]In September 2009, theCollege of Psychologists of British Columbiaurged theSaskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeonsto launch an investigation into Heilman's posting of the images. Heilman toldCTV Newsthat "The psychological community is trying to exclude everybody outside their field from taking part in discussions related to what they do. And personally, I think that's bad science."[46]An extensive debate ensued on Wikipedia, and the images were kept.[43]

Discovery of textbook plagiarism of Wikipedia

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In 2012, Heilman noticed that the bookUnderstanding and Management of Special Child in Pediatric Dentistry,published byJaypee Brothers,contained a long passage aboutHIVthat was plagiarized from Wikipedia's article on the subject.[29]This subsequently led to the book being withdrawn by the publisher.[47]

In October 2014, while reading a copy of theOxford Textbook ofZoonoses(published byOxford University Press), Heilman noticed that the book's section on Ebola was very similar to the Wikipedia page on that subject.[25]He initially suspected that a Wikipedia editor had copied the portion but later noticed that the part of the Wikipedia article that resembled the part of the textbook had been written in 2006 and 2010, while the textbook had not been published until 2011.[25]Christian Purdy, an Oxford University Press spokesperson, acknowledged that some of the text in the textbook had been copied but described it as an "inadvertent omission of an appropriate attribution" rather than plagiarism.[25]

Tenure on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

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In June 2015, Heilman was elected by the community to theWikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees.[9]In December 2015, the board removed Heilman from his position as a Trustee,[10][48]a decision that generated substantial controversy amongst members of the Wikipedia community.[49]A statement released by the board declared the lack of confidence of his fellow trustees in him as the reasons for his ousting. Heilman later stated that he "was given the option of resigning [by the board] over the last few weeks. As a community elected member I see my mandate as coming from the community which elected me and thus declined to do so. I saw such a move as letting down those who elected me."[50]He subsequently pointed out that while on the board, he had pushed for greater transparency regarding the Wikimedia Foundation's controversialKnowledge Engineproject and its financing,[51]and indicated that his attempts to make public theKnight Foundationgrant for the engine had been a factor in his dismissal.[52]

The volunteer community re-elected him to the Wikimedia Foundation board in 2017, until November of 2021.[53]

Other

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In 2012, Heilman was one of two Wikimedia contributors sued byInternet Brandsfor shifting freely licensed content and volunteer editors from the for-profit siteWikitravelto the non-profit siteWikivoyage.The Wikimedia Foundation defended Heilman's actions in the lawsuit, citing volunteer freedom of choice.[54][55]In February 2013, the parties settled their litigation.[56]In 2014, Heilman criticized a study which concluded that nine out of ten Wikipedia medical articles contained errors.[5][57][58]In 2015,the Atlanticran a piece aboutconflict-of-interest editing on Wikipediawhich detailed Heilman's efforts to counteract edits made by employees ofMedtronicto the Wikipedia page forpercutaneous vertebroplasty.[25]In 2017,Vicealso ran an article about conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia, in which the author noted that Heilman had vocally called on the Wikimedia Foundation to increase its enforcement of Wikipedia's policy against undisclosed paid editing.[59]

Personal life

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Heilman enjoys runningultramarathonsandadventure racing.[20][60]He and his girlfriend ran theGobi Marchin 2008.[61]He has also run theMarathon des Sables,theAdventure Racing World Championships,[18]and theSaskatchewan Marathon.[62]

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See also

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Wikimedia Commons has media related toJames Heilman.

References

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  2. ^abMcneil, Mark (October 4, 2011)."Wikipedia makes a house call to Mac".The Hamilton Spectator.Archivedfrom the original on December 25, 2018.RetrievedJanuary 12,2014.
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