In Critical Condition

摘要

It's a familiar staple of medical dramas: A patient is rushed to the emergency room fighting for breath, and when immediate measures fail to bring relief, she is placed on a ventilator. The machines have been a fixture of respiratory therapy for decades and have saved countless lives. Yet, for all this experience, consensus has been surprisingly lacking on the basics of treating patients in acute distress―such as how to set the optimal mix of volume, pressure, and oxygen. In the early 1990s, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) decided to bring science to bear on the question: It launched a $37 million, three-part clinical trial that aimed to enroll more than 2000 patients at 19 medical centers.