Brain Death Determination Practices in Children
- Joan A. Lynch, MD, PhD
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
To the Editor. —It was with great interest that I read the article by Drs Mejia and Pollack regarding brain death determination practices in children.1 However, it was with equal disappointment that I read their analysis of our study, which was published in May 1992.2
Mejia and Pollack stated that our study was limited to "individual practices," implying that individual physicians responded and that perhaps a limited number were involved. They also state that their study was the first to sample clinical practices in determination of brain death in a large number of diverse pediatric intensive care units (PICUs), and I feel compelled to dispute this.
In fact, our study was one of the first to survey a large number of diverse PICUs concerning this complex matter. Forty-nine tertiary PICUs from the United States and Canada were surveyed, and 34 centers responded. Questions addressed included methods to confirm
