ONLINE: How to Research Human Organ Damage

If your product liability case involves damage to a specific organ, eg, heart damage allegedly caused by the use of fen-phen, professional organizations such as the American College of Cardiology (ACC) may offer some assistance. You can go to the association's Web site (http://www.acc.org/) for information on a number of conditions. More than 27,000 cardiologists from the U.S. and around the world are members of ACC. The association provides a framework of evidence-based clinical statements and guidelines developed by leaders in the field of cardiovascular medicine, which will help you address contemporary practice issues. The Web site offers the choice of searching its alphabetical guide by topic or by links to five areas: Clinical Practice Guidelines; Clinical Training and Competence; Clinical Expert Consensus Documents; and Policy Statements, Consensus; and Conference Reports.

Click on Guidelines to find articles that include acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), ambulatory electrocardiography, atrial fibrillation; clinical intracardiac electrophysiological and catheter ablation procedures, clinical use of radionuclide imaging, coronary angiography, and more. Most have been published in leading medical journals, and the site offers practical annotation on finding the specific journals referenced in the guidelines. Additional helpful information includes pocket guidelines, executive summaries, and news releases on various cardiac conditions. This is a great way to find out what the standard of care is for the experts in the area.

If you click on 'Journal,' you will access Cardiosource, a collaboration of the ACC Foundation and Elsevier Science, and find information about studies, clinical trials and key articles on the latest treatments. For instance, you can find a clinical trial review of a study showing that endovascular cooling can feasibly and safely be performed as an adjunct to primary percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) for acute myocardial infarction, or an article from the latest issue of the Journal of the ACC explaining that spironolactone, like beta- blockers, cannot be used as a primary therapy of heart failure. In addition, you can access updated clinical trials, Mosby's Drug Database, and cardiology reference books.

From there, it's a quick click of the mouse to one of the best medical sources on the Web: PubMed (www.ncbi.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi.). This URL takes you to the 'Entrez PubMed' query page. This is the site physicians use to find articles on the latest advances in their respective fields. It's a treasure trove of information, and features an easy-to-use search engine.

An attorney can research a condition by its name, its acronym, and/or the drugs that treat it (or should NOT treat it), and come up with myriad articles from all over the world. Abstracts of the articles are accessible; the articles themselves are easily ordered or the journals in which they appear can be contacted (the information all appears in a concise, quick format). There is virtually nothing that you cannot find regarding specific medical conditions and their treatment on this site. And in the extremely rare case that you cannot find what you need, there is sure to be a link to a site where the information is available.

If your product liability case involves damage to a specific organ, eg, heart damage allegedly caused by the use of fen-phen, professional organizations such as the American College of Cardiology (ACC) may offer some assistance. You can go to the association's Web site (http://www.acc.org/) for information on a number of conditions. More than 27,000 cardiologists from the U.S. and around the world are members of ACC. The association provides a framework of evidence-based clinical statements and guidelines developed by leaders in the field of cardiovascular medicine, which will help you address contemporary practice issues. The Web site offers the choice of searching its alphabetical guide by topic or by links to five areas: Clinical Practice Guidelines; Clinical Training and Competence; Clinical Expert Consensus Documents; and Policy Statements, Consensus; and Conference Reports.

Click on Guidelines to find articles that include acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), ambulatory electrocardiography, atrial fibrillation; clinical intracardiac electrophysiological and catheter ablation procedures, clinical use of radionuclide imaging, coronary angiography, and more. Most have been published in leading medical journals, and the site offers practical annotation on finding the specific journals referenced in the guidelines. Additional helpful information includes pocket guidelines, executive summaries, and news releases on various cardiac conditions. This is a great way to find out what the standard of care is for the experts in the area.

If you click on 'Journal,' you will access Cardiosource, a collaboration of the ACC Foundation and Elsevier Science, and find information about studies, clinical trials and key articles on the latest treatments. For instance, you can find a clinical trial review of a study showing that endovascular cooling can feasibly and safely be performed as an adjunct to primary percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs) for acute myocardial infarction, or an article from the latest issue of the Journal of the ACC explaining that spironolactone, like beta- blockers, cannot be used as a primary therapy of heart failure. In addition, you can access updated clinical trials, Mosby's Drug Database, and cardiology reference books.

From there, it's a quick click of the mouse to one of the best medical sources on the Web: PubMed (www.ncbi.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi.). This URL takes you to the 'Entrez PubMed' query page. This is the site physicians use to find articles on the latest advances in their respective fields. It's a treasure trove of information, and features an easy-to-use search engine.

An attorney can research a condition by its name, its acronym, and/or the drugs that treat it (or should NOT treat it), and come up with myriad articles from all over the world. Abstracts of the articles are accessible; the articles themselves are easily ordered or the journals in which they appear can be contacted (the information all appears in a concise, quick format). There is virtually nothing that you cannot find regarding specific medical conditions and their treatment on this site. And in the extremely rare case that you cannot find what you need, there is sure to be a link to a site where the information is available.