Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medical professional misconduct scandals in Nova Scotia


 * 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 delete‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__. Doczilla Ohhhhhh, no! 10:21, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Medical professional misconduct scandals in Nova Scotia

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Another referral from WP:BLPN. This article is a product of original research and synthesis. As titled, this concept or topic is not a phenomenon covered as such within multiple reliable sources. This is an agglomeration of scandals of merely topical relation (to a non-notable topic). As an additional consideration, the WP:BLP-applicable contents have been and stand to remain consistently problematic. A list article would stand a better chance, but most of the scandals covered here are not independently notable. JFHJr (㊟) 01:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Health and fitness, Medicine,  and Canada. JFHJr (㊟) 01:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * How are scandals that involve serious breaches of public trust on multiple occasions (e.g. Dalhousie Dentistry scandal, multiple privacy breaches) and 6-7 figure lawsuit payouts not notable? One of the bullying scandals even led the victim to making a TEDx talk about workplace bullying:
 * https://www.ted.com/talks/gabrielle_horne_how_a_doctor_used_medical_research_tools_to_survive_workplace_bullying?language=en
 * If the title needs to be changed, that's one thing. Or making it a "list article", whatever that means. But I don't agree that the scandals are not independently notable. And they are related - several of them raise that there are systemic issues that recur, for example:
 * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/dalhousie-medical-school-mistreatment-harassment-bullying-1.6712113
 * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/medical-resident-mistreatment-study-dalhousie-1.7058488
 * And others as referenced. Feel free to read the original news articles in detail, if I perhaps did not summarize them well, but I definitely see them pointing to systemic issues repeatedly - the articles themselves, not me as doing "original research and synthesis".
 * As a new editor on Wikipedia, getting excited about making an article about all the medical scandals in our province and the toxic workplace issues that we all hear about the medical system all the time, and being shut down quite harshly repeatedly instead of welcomed and kindly shown how to refine things, I am so demoralized that I'm frankly just done with editing. No point if this is what this community is like.
 * MrHaligonian (talk) 02:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Delete Hello MrHaligonian, and welcome. You, me and everyone else are compelled by the rules of the project. Some of these scandals may be notable in and of themselves, but creating an article listing them all under a common banner is a form of synthesis called original research, which is disallowed. Draken Bowser (talk) 08:44, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * and per Fram. Draken Bowser (talk) 08:50, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Delete because the volunteer willing to make the necessary improvements has withdrawn. Keep because we have an editor willing to Split it into two My knee-jerk reaction is that this is probably notable enough to keep. Now to read with care... Okay, the main complaint is OR, right? The first two sources cited look RS at first blush, but they do not actually state the information they're cited to support. The source has to say the thing! Continuing... Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC) Okay, I did a source sampler on the article talk page. I propose that we Refocus the article to "Medical professional scandals at Dalhousie University": 1) The article's sources are mostly RS, but I did not see any that said "We're talking about the specific concept of medical professional scandals in Nova Scotia." The claims made in the lede that NS has a pervasive culture of harassment need to be backed up by sources that say exactly that or almost exactly that, and the sources just don't say that. 2) A big chunk of the article focuses on scandals that happened at Dalhousie University specifically and almost all of the statements made by sources do support what happened there. A few explore why in good detail. The case can be made for notability. I say we snip off that section at the bottom about the health service and repurpose these editors' hard work as a DU article. I didn't go into as much depth on the sources covering the Health Authority, but if the sources are of the same quality, then we could WP:CONTENTSPLIT the article in two. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for taking the time to read the sources and come up with a creative idea that allows my hard work to be kept. I agree with you that it's mostly Dalhousie University problems, because as far as I can tell, everything that happened at Nova Scotia Health Authority also happened at Dalhousie University as all were employed as trainees (medical students, residents, fellows) at Dalhousie, or they were doing research there. The only part that has nothing to do with Dalhousie is the part about repeated privacy breaches, as the news media only says it was healthcare professionals looking at hundreds of records that they weren't authorized to, and the lawsuit had NSHA pay out $1 million with a new lawsuit & allegations of negligence as of last month. I would be good with having the majority of the sources moved into a Dalhousie University article by someone who knows how to write this better/quote the sources better (maybe you, Darkfrog24) and I don't know what to do with the NSHA-only parts.
 * For the record, I originally had another section on private practice scandals that someone felt violates BLP so it was removed. That further pigeonholes this article into being mostly about Dalhousie and less about the whole of Nova Scotia. MrHaligonian (talk) 12:30, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 *  as far as I can tell,
 * There's your kicker. It's not about what you can tell or what I can tell. It's about what professionally published sources can tell. The article has sources that say "medical scandals are a specific thing in Dalhousie" and "medical scandals are a specific thing in the Health Authority," but it's WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH to add that together as yourself-the-Wikieditor and say "therefore they're a thing in Nova Scotia." Even if you are a professional investigator of this specific issue IRL, you have to wait for a pro to publish. That's true throughout project Wiki: Chemists aren't allowed to write chemistry articles without sources even though they're experts. Historians aren't allowed to write history articles without sources even though they're experts. We all need sources, and those sources have to say the thing that the article says or strongly implies.
 * My first article got deleted too. I've since gone on to make many more. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:45, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The kind of source you'd need for "Medical professional misconduct scandals in Nova Scotia" would be something like a newspaper article analyzing multiple scandals and talking about what it is about Nova Scotia specifically that made them happen or made them happen the way they did. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:49, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah I see, thank you. It is possible such an article exists and I just haven't found it yet. I did find, in another search, 4 more articles about serious scandals in Nova Scotia Health Authority. So this would provide more material for an NSHA article if we were to proceed with splitting a Dalhousie University medical scandals article off from an NSHA article:
 * https://ca.news.yahoo.com/nova-scotia-medical-mistakes-registry-085610510.html
 * https://globalnews.ca/news/10318288/pictou-landing-first-nation-accuse-radiologists-secret-tests/
 * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/ambulance-service-emc-ehs-health-emergency-1.7131333
 * https://globalnews.ca/news/9396989/allison-holthoff-er-death-cumberland-regional-health-centre-ns/
 * I think the entirety of my article up to, and NOT including, my last paragraph about privacy breaches, can be transitioned to a DU-specific article, since everyone in the paragraphs above the NSHA privacy breaches were training or doing research at DU and DU is therefore significantly involved even if NSHA ended up being the one getting sued. For example, the Dr. Horne case involved her doing research at DU and older colleagues demanded to receive undue credit on her research, which is very much a DU culture problem, but NSHA suspended her privileges so it was NSHA that got sued. The fact of toxic culture issues at DU remain in that case though, along with all the other cases where DU was involved. I am actually now starting to realize that the toxic culture issues are primarily a DU problem, and NSHA problems are of a different nature entirely, more along the lines of disregard for privacy and medical mistakes, rather than being a "toxic workplace" issue. My goal with this article was to primarily comment on toxic workplace issues because that's what we constantly hear about from medical professionals in this province.
 * So I'm thinking to split the articles into 2:
 * 1. Dalhousie University Medical Scandals (or some such name to refer to the toxic workplace issues that repeatedly recur) and
 * 2. Nova Scotia Health Authority Scandals (referring to the privacy/medical errors type of issues) MrHaligonian (talk) 23:51, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * As this relates to article deletion, I think we can all take this as evidence that there is a Wikieditor willing to do the legwork. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:27, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I've edited the article accordingly to prep it for a potential content split. MrHaligonian (talk) 00:48, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Relisting this discussion as I don't see a consensus. The closing options in AFD are limited to Keep, Delete, Redirect, Merge or No consensus. This can't be closed with an order to Split this article as editing is voluntary and a closer can't order an editing task to occur. So, if this article is to be Split, you first have to vote to Keep it. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 01:43, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Split into two I don't know if I can vote on my own article, but of course I vote to keep it. If it helps, I understand the opening sentences were seen as "synthesis", so I took the feedback from Darkfrog24 that the sources have to specifically say the thing, and I reworded the opening to specifically say the thing. Also noting Dalhousie University is the largest university in the Maritimes (covering 3 provinces - NB, PEI, NS) and that would add to the notability. It's also one of the oldest universities in Canada, though I didn't add that because I am not sure if that makes any difference. MrHaligonian (talk) 20:06, 23 June 2024 (UTC) • Note: Double vote stricken by de-bolding in favor of newest vote. JFHJr (㊟) 02:06, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I also wonder how to make it a "list article", so that it's basically a summarized list of all the scandals, instead of "original research" and "synthesis". I don't know what the criteria are for making it a list. As it stands now, with the opening sentences revised, I feel like this is just a list of scandals at Dalhousie, and a list of scandals at the provincial health authority, and both of those fall under the realm of "Nova Scotia". If it's considered "synthesis" to combine them in 1 then I understand the content split argument, though the 2 articles separated would be basically stubs, and also there is considerable overlap between the two as it's not possible for someone to be a medical trainee at Dalhousie without also being a Nova Scotia Health Authority employee, and most NSHA employees involved in the scandals were also training or doing research at Dalhousie. But the privacy breach scandals with a $1million class action lawsuit payout and a new class action lawsuit pending seem to have no link to Dalhousie. This is why I think it's good to have them both together under 1 article, but if it is "synthesis" to identify that Dalhousie and NSHA together fall under the umbrella of Nova Scotia, then I guess splitting is the only option... MrHaligonian (talk) 20:14, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * A list article requires discrete events to list that have articles (are independently notable by themselves). They generally stand in the same WP:CATEGORY in some way. It substitutes for a genre-type article where no source (presently) supports one. What we have here is an article that's knitting together topics from apparently one or more discrete categories without the IRL support for tying them together. Completely unsarcastically, MrHaligonian would be a great journalist, and I bet local publishers would publish a synthesis like this. It's okay for them to do that, just not us. It takes three or more willing publishers though, so perhaps save this article's raw code locally and bring this to media attention if you care about the issue. FYI I usually ravage BLP related articles especially, either before or during AfD, but I didn't here in case you wanted to sandbox or WP:DRAFT this. Cheers. JFHJr (㊟) 03:46, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation and the compliment. We did end up removing the BLP-related private practice one and I haven't brought it back in. The scandals listed in the article now are less about living people and more about the institutions. The living people are just being quoted/mentioned, very similar to the source material and not synthesizing them. If you're going to ravage this at some point, please compare with the original articles and be gentle. The point I was trying to get across was what the institutional/cultural problems are, not biographing living people. There is a lot more to say about Dr. Gabrielle Horne per information about her online, but I'm not biographing her and just included the news article information about how DU/NSHA did her dirty. MrHaligonian (talk) 21:07, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'll wait for this AFD to take its course before considering offering a scalpel or cleaver. Thank you for your efforts in addressing the BLP concerns. Cheers. JFHJr (㊟) 01:50, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You're totally allowed to vote. You're what we call the "first major contributor" to the article. That means you get to set a few precedents for the article going forward, but other than that it's not treated as yours per se. (So you get to vote and aren't treated as inherently biased just for having made said contribution.) I like to think of it as as soon as I hit "publish changes," I've given the content to the Wiki as a present. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:46, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for explaining, and I responded to your helpful explanation about synthesis above. MrHaligonian (talk) 23:52, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Your vote is allowed, welcomed, and reasoned (which is important, thank you!). You can also change it if you want, or add a "Strong" or "Weak" if you're feeling so. Decisions here are ultimately by WP:CONSENSUS, so generally comments and votes here get considered according to what you say and not who you are. Deletion is a drastic question but we aren't drastic about it I hope. JFHJr (㊟) 04:09, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Keep or Redirect Based on the above discussion, I suggest we keep this with a plan to split into two: Dalhousie University having their own page on their medical scandals, and redirect the NSHA-specific redirect pages to Nova Scotia Health Authority by copy & pasting the small section on NSHA scandals into a new small section on scandals at the bottom of that existing Nova Scotia Health Authority article. Alternatively, if it's not felt that Dalhousie University Medical Scandals should be its own page, then the same can be done with the DU scandal material by copy & pasting that section into the bottom of the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine article as a new scandals section - which may work out better if JFHJr will continue with the threat to take a "scalpel or cleaver" to the material and thus shorten it significantly. Note that if removing BLP-related content, please try to maintain as much of the scandal-related material as possible, even if removing names of the people involved. The only hitch on this is that the Dalhousie Dentistry scandal, while technically falling under the umbrella of a "medical" scandal, is its own faculty separate from the Faculty of Medicine (it's the Faculty of Dentistry) so if all of that is being redirected to Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine then some rewording would be necessary to point out how the Faculty of Dentistry scandal is closely related but from a separate faculty that appears to not have their own Wiki page. --MrHaligonian (talk) 16:55, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Heads up, you've made it look like you voted twice. That's not that big of a deal since both statements are signed, but this paragraph belongs in the thread with your original post, right under J's comment about not being drastic. This way, people reading the thread quickly won't mistake you for two people. (Feel free to remove this statement of mine when you move this post.) Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:32, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The reason I voted again is because this was relisted because of no consensus. My original vote was skewed toward "split into two" and that is apparently not an option. Your vote was also "split into two" and I think they're saying that they want something that is either Keep, Delete, Redirect, Merge or No consensus. I get the sense that we should both remove our original votes and put a firm, allowed vote here below the relist? I removed my original "keep" and just left the incorrect "split into two" for the arguments there, but my final vote is Keep or Redirect with the material being split. MrHaligonian (talk) 22:55, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * MrHaligonian, you can't "vote" more than once. Please strike the vote you no longer have or another editor might strike out one of the votes on your behalf. It's better that you choose which one. Liz Read! Talk! 06:27, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * See where I went back and changed the bold text of my vote? Do that. You can make a crossout by writing "strike" in format like this: Split into two Keep. It's okay that it's located above the relist notice. People know to look for it there. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:57, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @MrHaligonian: Relisting just means the voting period was prolonged. It doesn't mean we all (get/have to) vote again. AfD would be even more of a madhouse. If you don't do so yourself, I'm inclined to strike your first vote because your second one appears to be a somewhat substantive departure from your original vote, and appears intended as an update or refactoring. I'd like to have this discussion represent your position accurately but only once. Please revert me and strike tour second vote if I'm wrong. JFHJr (㊟) 02:00, 1 July 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm going to bow out of editing on Wikipedia. If the ultimate decision is to keep or redirect, hopefully someone else will do it based on whatever the consensus is on the best way to move around the material! Ciao. MrHaligonian (talk) 22:13, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia can be frustrating and you're not the only person to decide that your time and energy are better spent elsewhere. Good luck and maybe see you later if you change your mind. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:04, 2 July 2024 (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.