Mandatory ethics consultation policy.

Objective: To describe ethics consultations at a single institution that has a mandatory ethics consultation policy.

Patients And Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of all adult patients who were admitted to the intensive care unit at Columbia University Medical Center and had an ethics consultation between August 1, 2006, and July 31, 2007. All mandatory and nonmandatory ethics consultations were reviewed.

Dexmedetomidine infusion is associated with enhanced renal function after thoracic surgery.

Study Objective: To test the hypothesis that dexmedetomidine, a selective alpha-2 agonist, enhances urine flow rate and perioperative renal function, a post hoc analysis was conducted on a recently completed study of dexmedetomidine used as an adjunct to epidural analgesia after thoracotomy.

Design: Post hoc analysis of a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial.

Setting: Tertiary-care university medical center.

A prospective, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of dexmedetomidine as an adjunct to epidural analgesia after thoracic surgery.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that after thoracic surgery, the supplementation of a low-dose thoracic epidural (ED) bupivacaine (0.125%) infusion by intravenous (IV) dexmedetomidine decreases analgesic requirement without causing respiratory depression. The primary endpoint was the need for additional ED bupivacaine administered through patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA).

Chest radiograph interpretation skills of anesthesiologists.

Objective: To assess the skills of anesthesiologists in the interpretation of chest radiographs.

Design: Randomized evaluation conducted among anesthesiologists and radiologists.

Setting: Postgraduate Assembly of the New York State Society of Anesthesiologists in 1999, and the Department of Radiology, New York University Medical Center.