Wiki Project Med is one of the clients of ProZ Pro Bono, which helps people get access to accurate medical information, online or offline, by publishing and translating medical articles on Wikipedia. In addition to working as a volunteer, I was curious about the members of the organization, how they work, and which projects they are working on, so I decided to ask one of the members, Lucas, if he would answer those questions.
He mentioned that the staff at the Wiki Project Med Foundation are volunteers, primarily physicians or academics. The project's lead is an emergency room doctor from Canada. He would estimate that 5–8 individuals are involved in the month-to-month operations. Nobody earns a salary. They recruit volunteers from the top medical editors of various languages on Wikipedia and collaborate with like-minded organizations (ProZ, Our World in Data, National Institutes of Health).
He also said that the foundation has no overhead costs, so there is no office building, paid secretarial staff, or public relations department. The foundation pays for accounting services, computer programmers, translation coordinators, fundraising campaigns, and the like on an as-needed basis. Lucas himself is a high school teacher who helps in his spare time. Some of his work in the Foundation is as a volunteer, but the Foundation also pays him to coordinate some projects.
There are also fascinating projects held by Wiki Project Med, like Internet-in-a-Box, which is a great example of the foundation's philosophy. Healthcare content is stored on a portable device, which is the size of a cigarette lighter and doesn't rely on live internet access. Therefore, medical facts are accessible even in the poorest and most remote areas.
There are many success stories of when these devices were used in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Peru. Local medical staff could get access to extensive, accurate medical information on their phones immediately, without depending only on old medical books on office shelves. These types of improvements save time, effort, and more importantly, lives. To learn more about the impact of these devices, you can visit the following Wikipedia page, Internet-in-a-Box, where you can also find videos and images about it in the history section.
Last but not least, the foundation has worked on an interesting project called WikiMed. It offers an offline application to get access to medical information when you have to visit remote wireless places. It is available for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux in several languages for free. To download the application and learn more about it, you can visit the following Wikipedia page, WikiProjectMed:App.
It is important to highlight the collaboration of Lucas Rosnau in this insightful article. Our main idea of doing it was to invite potential volunteers, like you, to join Proz Pro Bono and Wiki Project Med. Your collaboration will bridge the medical divide in many places around the world while you get excellent work experience in the medical translation field. If you are interested in both becoming a volunteer for Proz Pro Bono and collaborating with this medical foundation, complete our get-involved form, and then follow the instructions in the WikiProjectMed document. We are excited to have you on our team!
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Keep up the good work, Óscar! 👏