Topic contribution guide

Example of a finished topic page: Chronic rhinosinusitis.

Rough topic structure

Other topic content specifics:

• Not all topics will fit this general structure, and it is meant as a general scaffold. If you look at this article, you can see how the structure can be deviated (but the content remains comprehensive)

• Pearls, tips, pitfalls, etc. should be intermixed throughout the topic -- ideally, the page is not just a solid mass of bullet points

• Where possible, especially for more recent changes to guidelines, please include references. If a fact is obviously self-evident (ie. INCS is used to treat allergic rhinitis), it does not need a citation; however, a specific point-estimate should have one. This is somewhat subjective; confer with the editors and staff during the review period if questions arise

  • References should be in Vancouver format. If you are writing your rough draft in Google Docs, please use a citation manager -- having the correct numbers for in-text citations makes it MUCH easier to port the references to the website
  • If there are particular references that are very high yield, feel free to include a small blurb about them (it will show up in the reference icon, as such: 2)

• If you need to list a specific prescription, format as "ExRx: Nasonex 2 sprays EN BID" (ExRx = Example Prescription)

  • If possible, you can also list a 'med-popup' linking to a relevant medication card. For example:
    ×

    Rx

    Bilastine

    Brand Names: Blexten

    Routes: 10/20mg PO tab, 2.5mg/ml liquid (uncommon)

    MoA: 2nd generation H1 receptor antagonist

    Half-life: ~15 hours

    Time to peak action: ~1h, rapid absorption

    Doses:

    • CSU, AR: 20mg PO OD to QID (≥12 years old)
    • CSU, AR: 10mg PO OD to QID (4-11 years old)

    Cost: ~$1.1 CAD / 20mg tab (ON)

    Coverage: ON (ODB)

    Age Group: ≥4 years old

    Pregnancy: Avoid (not enough data)

    Contraindications: Hypersensitivity, QT prolongation or history of torsades

    Common SEs: QT prolongation (at 100mg ODx4, max mean increase 6ms); drowsiness (4%); headache (4%). For reference, drowisness/headache had a 2% incidence rate in placebo arm

    Severe SEs: Torsades (very rare)

    Monograph Links:

    • Bilastine (2021 - 1)

    Abbr.

    CSU-chronic spontaneous urticaria; AR-allergic rhinitis

    Pearls

    • Theoretically does not cross BBB; less sedating than other AHs

    • No renal adjustments needed; minimal data with hepatic impairment but not expected to cause issues

    • Going beyond OD is technically off-label

    • Take without food or juice otherwise absorption impaired

• If possible for key management options, there should be a 'drop box' for a deeper dive into the evidence: specifically, any relevant point estimates that would be useful for patient counseling. For example:

Macros

Macros exist at the top of the topic page. While not all topics need a macro, most will. It has 2 sections:

• relevant HPI
• Family doctor focused blurb about the condition (ie. pathophys, prognosis), investigations, management recommendations

Example:

Patient handouts/resources

If applicable, each topic should have an accompanying printable patient resource: see this example.

• It should be written at a 6th grade level or lower
• Use of tables, diagrams is highly encouraged
• Often, use of LLMs such as ChatGPT are quite helpful at this stage to reword with simpler language

Styling of topic pages

Markdown

• See this link for a great introduction to the Markdown format

• For your purposes, you do not have to know Markdown itself very well -- it is more important you know that the website renders Markdown. This means that you are able to use italics, bolded words, strike-through-text, and links such as the one before. Lists and bullet points will also render as you expect. Different title headers can be achieved with # signs

• Make good use of highlights as well

• You can also make tables in Markdown, though they do not look the best and cannot be too complicated:

  Name	Comment
  Alice	Always involved in various communications
  Bob	A good guy, who likes to communicate with Alice
  Malroy	Not so nice guy. Tries to mess with the communication of Alice and Bob.

  • This doesn't mean we can't accommodate more complex tables (ie with nesting), but it does mean Josh/editors need to manually code it in

Shortcodes

• Shortcodes are custom pieces of styled HTML (and sometimes JavaScript). You can use any of the shortcodes below as you like for a topic
• Each can serve a different purpose, and helps break up plain-text into more manageable sections
• You don't have to know how to implement them -- one of the editors who knows how to code will do it for you. Just indicate in your draft document what shortcode you want, and the information you need in it. If you're interested in the actual code, check out the GitHub

Admonitions

Admonitions are boxes that are intended to highlight an important fact for the reader. There are a variety of styles and icons that can be used. Options for type/icon: note, tip, info, warning, danger, and pearl. These can be mixed and matched. The title of each admonition can be changed to any text.

Question

Insert questions with hidden answers. Click the blurred section to reveal it.

text_image

Sometimes you want to show an image and text to one side of it. You have two options:

Here is some text on the left.

QUESTION

Can you also add questions on the side?

Yes!

test caption

Here is some text on the right.

You can add admonitions here too!

This is helpful if there's something you really want to call someone's attention too!

test caption

two_columns

Sometimes you want two columns to place text in.

references

References are embeddable! All you need to do it prepare references like you normally do with a bibliography in Vancouver style, and the editor will implement the rest. For example:

This sentence needs two references 1,2. Here is another sentence with one reference 3.

... rest of document

custom_macro

You can create custom copy-paste macros if you need to.

load_macro

You can also load any macros from the offical macro 'repo' here

contributors

A small cut-out for contributors. This may be removed in the future.

timeline

dropdown

Dropdowns are useful if you want to host information in more depth without taking up more space. For example, deep dives into the evidence behind a management option, listing the detailed options for a particular class of medication, etc.

mermaid

mermaid diagrams are interesting to use but not mandatory. If you want to explore and use these, check out their documentation.

{% mermaid() %}

sequenceDiagram
Alice ->> Bob: Hello Bob, how are you?
Bob-->>John: How about you John?
Bob--x Alice: I am good thanks!
Bob-x John: I am good thanks!
Note right of John: Bob thinks a long<br/>long time, so long<br/>that the text does<br/>not fit on a row.

    Bob-->Alice: Checking with John...
    Alice->John: Yes... John, how are you?

{% end %}