Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Reinisch


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. (non-admin closure) Armbrust, B.Ed. Let's talk about my edits? 09:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

John Reinisch

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not a particularly notable or important figure in our field. This wouldn't even be the person you think about for what is purported to be the operation they "pioneered" (microtia), who would be Burt Brent Droliver (talk) 18:53, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Reinisch's surgical procedure is mentioned in Microtia and we already have an article on Burt Brent. It seems these surgeons take a different approach to reconstruction of the outer ear.  There is no reason why we can't have biographies of both of them.  Cullen 328   Let's discuss it  21:32, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 23:49, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 23:50, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep as pioneer of a reconstructive procedure for ear surgery, as cited in footnotes. Article could stand improved sourcing. Carrite (talk) 00:35, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to keep things in perspective, as someone who actually does this for a living, no one in our field would immediately thing of John Reinisch (or anyone else for that matter) when using a polyethylene implant for microtia repair. It's just not a particularly notable procedure, and outside Bert Brent no one is really well known for it. Furthermore the 1st attribution of microtia with this I can find in texts is actually to other surgeons, Wellisz T. Reconstruction of the burned external ear using a Medpor porous polyethylene pivoting helix framework. Plast Reconstr Surg. Apr 1993;91(5):811-8.

The take home message is that this is a VERY soft candidate for inclusion in context of notable contemporary surgeons Droliver (talk) 22:07, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You seem to be failing to get the point that we don't make decisions based on the self-declared expertise of an individual editor, which we have no means of checking, but on published sources. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:24, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not a physician, so I just go by what the reliable sources say. According to Google Scholar, the most cited articles by both Reinisch and Burt were published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery , the journal of the  American Society of Plastic Surgeons.  Reinisch was the sole author of a 1974 paper that has been cited 199 times.  Brent was the sole author of a 1992 article that has been cited 244 times.  Reinisch has published many other articles in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery as well as widely cited articles in other reputable medical journals, such as Pediatrics, the American Journal of Pathology, the Journal of Cutaneous Pathology, Fetal and Pediatric Pathology, Annals of Plastic Surgery, Genes, Chromosomes and Cancer, and the American Journal of Orthodontics & Dentofacial Orthopedics.  His 2009 article in Facial Plastic Surgery, "Ear Reconstruction Using a Porous Polyethylene Framework and Temporoparietal Fascia Flap" describes the results of his team's work on 788 ears over an 18 year period.  Brent reconstructs the outer ears of microtia patients using cartilage, while Reinisch uses a polyethelene framework.  The fact that another physician may have used the polyethelene framework technique earlier on a burn patient is interesting but has nothing directly to do with reconstruction in microtia cases.  Droliver seems to think that we should accept his personal opinions about which plastic surgeons are notable and which aren't, because Droliver claims to be a plastic surgeon who knows who's who in the field.  Droliver may well be a surgeon, but we have no way of knowing for sure.  Personal opinions mean very little in these debates.  Droliver's comment about the "context of notable contemporary surgeons" shows a lack of understanding of our notability standards, as it is well-established here that notablity is not temporary.  This is not a "contemporary" encyclopedia, and someone notable four decades ago or 400 years ago is still notable. What we can know is what Reinisch has published over the decades in reputable journals, and it is quite a bit over 38 years.  That leads me to believe that both John Reinisch and Burt Brent are notable.  Cullen 328   Let's discuss it  03:01, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Using your logic, any physician who publishes any article ever in peer-reviewed literature meets a de-facto standard of notability. That's what Pub-Med and Medline are for. For contemporary physicians in particular, wikipedia inclusion should be limited to those who are truly notable in the field or of historic consequence or it just turns into a google like hodge-podge of biographies. I now defer to the wisdom of the crowdDroliver (talk) 16:14, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I neither said nor implied that a single journal article would confer notability. Instead, I argued that Reinisch's cited work is comparable to Brent's, even if he is not cited quite as much, and that Reinisch has published dozens of articles (not one) in a variety of very authoritative journals, including many in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.  That's my logic in a nutshell.  Cullen 328   Let's discuss it  19:33, 2 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep I have improved the references (which were largely self-referential) and removed some of the puffery. His citations at Google Scholar are not terribly impressive (please note that the 1974 article mentioned by Cullen which was cited 199 times appears to have been written by a different J. F. Reinisch). However, he founded the plastic surgery department at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and chaired the plastic surgery department at USC. He has been cited on national television as a pioneer in the field and has gotten significant coverage in the popular press . I think this adds up to notability. --MelanieN (talk) 08:15, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - Per addition of references to the article by User:MelanieN. This topic is meeting WP:GNG. Northamerica1000 (talk) 01:53, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.