How can we medically tell whether or not someone is alive or dead? The answer is much more complicated than you'd think. In this episode, which is a live podcast I gave with Tony Breu at the Massachusetts Chapter of the American College of Physicians annual meeting on October 16, 2021, we track the evolution and controversies of the death exam, from a trans-Atlantic scandal surrounding a possible vivisection, a 19th century “X-prize” to determine a technology that could diagnose death, the important distinction between “permanent” and irreversible, and the mysterious Lazarus phenomenon.    References: <ul> <li>Rodman A, Breu A. The last breath: historical controversies surrounding determination of cardiopulmonary death. Chest. 2021; [online ahead of print August 13, 2021]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chest.2021.08.006</li> </ul>

Adam Rodman, MD, MPH, FACP

Bedside Rounds is a storytelling podcast about medical history and medicine’s intersections with society and culture. Host Adam Rodman seeks to tell a few of these weird, wonderful, and intensely human stories that have made modern medicine.

74 - R2D2

bedside rounds

Bedside Rounds

How can we medically tell whether or not someone is alive or dead? The answer is much more complicated than you'd think. In this episode, which is a live podcast I gave with Tony Breu at the Massachusetts Chapter of the American College of Physicians...

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