Proposal talk:Doctor

Which Tag?

I think this is a very important feature. I think it would be important also to tag which type the doctor is (like dentist, common, women, ...) -- Skunk 21:50, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

• UK terms of address often style themselves "Mr", even those practitioners with a doctorate, sort of a badge of honour within the profession ;) Is "common" the same thing as a en_US "family doctor", DE "arzt" or en_GB "general practitioner (G.P.)"? --achadwick 20:09, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer a "medical" tag where not only doctors are tagged but also hospitals, emergency rooms, veterinarians and shops where you can buy wheelchairs etc. We need something here really urgently! --Lulu-Ann 09:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

• Moving hospital and pharmacy from amenity to convenience might be a good idea, I agree. Circeus 18:20, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Key:convenience has not been created (and does not appear to be proposed). Use of the existing key:amenity would mean only the new value(s) would have to be remembered, another problem with recategorisation is that the old tags will continue to be used by people unaware of the change. Peter James 21:06, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
    • My stupid bad, I was meaning to a "medical" tag, if it were to be created. Circeus 21:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
• Not sure bout categorising vets with human medical treatments of any sort. Let's keep the two separate; they're very distinct professions, and we should be striving to minimise possible confusion in renderers and software authors. But I like what you're saying about "medical"... will continue in a separate section. --achadwick 20:09, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Mainly in countryside regions there are no big hospitals. People will consult a doctor, when (small) accidents occure. Amenity=veterinary is approved; we need an equivalent tag for human medicine. Timo Beil 09:34, 06 Januaryr 2009 (UTC)

I think, a "specialty" (and a "subspecialty") key would be a good idea. Like "specialty=internel medicine". --Worst-case 09:16, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

"amenity=medical" (and namespace), maybe?

There are such things in the UK as polyclinics, where multiple different medical specialities are essentially combined in one large building which, nevertheless, isn't a hospital.

A way forward for representing human medical services might be to start of by tagging with:

amenity=medical # "this is some form of small to medium medical practice"

and/or:

medical=<something> # local practice type, e.g. "polyclinic", "gp_surgery", "medical_centre"

and then adding in further details using a namespace beginning with "medical", so perhaps something like:

amenity=medical

medical=clinic # might mean a polyclinic in some EU countries...

medical:doctor=yes # perhaps "physician" or "generalist" might be better!

medical:dentist=yes # specialist(s) dealing with the teeth, gums and oral health

medical:podiatrist=unknown # person(s) who treat(s) diseases of the foot

medical:opthalmologist=yes # diagnose and treat diseases of the eye (or where you get information on your condition of the eye so you can buy more accurate glasses)

medical:psychiatrist=yes # specialist in the biomedical approach to mental illness...

medical:psychotherapist=yes # ... assisted by psychotherapeutic specialist(s)

medical:treat:outpatients=yes # ambulatory patients are treated here

medical:treat:inpatients=no # can't "admit" patients & assign them a bed here, sorry

name=Highfield Medical Practice

operator=NHS # (UK) National Health Service

I want to be really clear here: I do not intend to hold this proposal up by forcing us to define every possible branch of medicine in a formal spec! Let's just say "namespace", and "please update the Key: page as necessary later on". The above is merely an example, I'm trying to convey that this is a pretty extensible scheme which allows us to correctly represent what a site does even though different countries vary a lot in what they call medical practices and how the services are provided.

I support that. A medical=witchdoctor would probably never be formally spec'ed... Nevertheless they do exist and some go there to try and be cured. --Arnotixe 19:32, 8 October 2010 (BST)

IMO, this would be a very extensible scheme, any takers? Any thoughts / suggestions? --achadwick 20:54, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Totally great, I'd love that. What about opening a proposal with this much extensible approach ? Sletuffe 14:07, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I added something for the medical:opthalmologist . Logictheo 09:35, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

After elaborating...another quick question: Are there difficulties in making programs parse information that are in this style medical:treat:inpatients=no? Logictheo 10:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

• Psychotherapists, podiatrists, etc., do not belong under the heading "medical". In the UK we have some nurse-led walk-in centres which do not have a single medic (doctor) in the building most of the time - it would be highly misleading to describe these as medical. I think you mean "healthcare", which incorporates all of the above. --Davespod 11:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Icon

• I found some icons for a doctor. The Red cross and the Star of life are under lizenz. Is it possible to make a mix of them? Smarties 19:29, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

  The Star of Life, used in US [1]

  Red Cross, used in EU [2]

  The Caduceus, used in US [3]

  The Rod of Asclepius, used in EU [4]

  • +1 on the Rod of Asclepius, only. Partly because it's internationally used (for example, it's part of the US-only(?) Star of Life), and partly because the other symbols actually mean subtly different things. The BMA use the symbol, as do the AMA, the NZMA, the Bundesärztekammer, and several faculties of the RCPI. I'll try to make something for it a little later on. --achadwick 21:21, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Problem if we used the the Rod of Asclepius only is that the very smal icon looks like a Dollar: $ and can make confusing to an Bank-Symbol Smarties 13:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
      • To my eyes, it curves back on itself too many times to make that error. Making it a little squat and calligraphic seems to help, as does giving the snake a little mouth (see main page). It scales OK to 16px: . Yeah, the horrid pink is the one currently used by Mapnik for hospitals: . --achadwick 23:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
• we don't have to look for any other symbol. Osmarender already use a logo for doctors. It's a green cross in a ring. It looks similar to the symbol of pharmacies (green cross in a square): [5]. I like that symbol, its easy and not so complicated like the Rod of Asclepius.
  • I would change the color, for not to be confused with pharmacies: I propose a blue cross in a square so it is different in colour and shape.--DaveFX 18:46, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
    • -1 on colour-coded, differently-bordered little Swiss crosses. Having a whole bunch of them, all ever so slightly different is pretty confusing. Now if they were differentiated by size, I think you'd be onto something. --achadwick 23:58, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

doctors in Greece with 'internal medicine' specialty

There are doctors in Greece who have specialty as "παθολόγος"("pathologos"). This has nothing to do with pathology, or specialty as pathologist. I think it's related to w:Internal Medicine. Logictheo 09:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Specialists

How to tag the speciality of various doctors? Somehow we should be able to know which doctors are pedriatics, gynicologists, darmatologists, etc. In Brazil where I live there are very few doctors or clinics that offer general helth care (i.e. have a large range of specialists), but rather many offices and clinics where only one to three doctors works, specialiced in very narrow fields. If the clinic in general is to be tagged, one might need to tag 3 or 4 specialist values on each clinic. --Skippern 17:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Why not office=doctor?

This seems to be a perfect use of office=*. --NE2 22:47, 9 October 2010 (BST)