FEATURED SEARCH: brain death
For several years, the definition of death has been in turmoil as evidence accumulates that a legally brain-dead human body can continue to carry out many metabolic processes independently. The implications for the field of organ transplantation, obviously, are tremendous.
The article below, by an NIH bioethicist, turns for insights to an ethical analysis from the late 1960s, the era when criteria for brain death were first being drafted.
RESULT: Death and Organ Donation: Back to the Future
Journal of Medical Ethics | Oct 1, 2009
The following results are among several recent studies that point to vulnerabilities in the assumption that someone who is brain-dead is also biologically dead.
RESULT: Controversies About Brain Death
JAMA | Jul 22, 2009
RESULT: A 10-month-old infant with reversible findings of brain death
Pediatric Neurology (PubMed) | Nov 1, 2009
The process of assessing brain death may also lead to biological responses that mislead those making the assessment, according to the following report.
RESULT: Cardiogenic oscillation and ventilator autotriggering in brain-dead patients: a case series
American Journal of Critical Care | Sep 1, 2009
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SEARCH TIP: Double-blind placebo-controlled
We noticed another person trying to achieve what SearchMedica has already accomplished. The search term was simply “double-blind placebo-controlled” (not even a symptom or condition name).
Just use the Evidence-based Articles category (above Result #1 in any search) to find only double-blind trials, meta-analyses, and systematic reviews.
Perhaps a better way to include only double-blind trials would be to specify “NOT meta-analysis NOT systematic” in results within that category, which would deliver only the trials and not the reviews.
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OTHER RECENT SEARCHES ON SEARCHMEDICA
Search: neonatal discharge
Allowing parents to help care for their premature infant and letting them stay in the neonatal ICU reduced the time to discharge, according to a study from Sweden.
RESULT: The Stockholm Neonatal Family Centered Care Study: Effects on Length of Stay and Infant Morbidity
Pediatrics | Feb 1, 2010
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SEARCH TIP: Free review articles
Someone searched on “free review Hereditary Spherocytosis.”
Here’s a better strategy for finding only PDFs of review articles on a specific topic. Type m:text/pdf and then the search term. For example, the request above would be m:text/pdf hereditary spherocytosis.
This limits your search to PDFs. Finding reviews only is more difficult, because sometimes the word “review” doesn’t even appear in a review. (The journal may use a designation such as “Clinical Perspectives.” You may be better off just scanning the titles for what appears to be a relevant review.)
Also, this strategy will not offer articles that are not put online in PDF format. You can tell whether a non-PDF result is full text by looking at the blue URL immediately above the journal name and date. (It’s clickable, by the way.) Usually you’ll see the word “full” somewhere inside the URL garble if the result includes the complete text.
Posted by smnewsletters 
