When Rarity Meets Urgency

A 70-year-old man arrives at the University of Iowa from Florida with an infected knee replacement. He has paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), a rare blood disorder where the immune system destroys red blood cells. It’s one of the rarest blood disorders in medicine, with an incidence of about 1–2 cases per million people per year.

He's being treated with Fabhalta, a new complement-inhibitor therapy that is still understudied and not yet widely understood.

The surgical team is pressing to operate immediately to prevent the infection from spreading to the bloodstream. But Dr. Maneet is weary of the danger: for patients with PNH, even a drop in body temperature can cause red blood cells to rupture, triggering life-threatening hemolysis. The operating room is cold. The drug is unfamiliar. The patient's blood type is rare. The margin for error is razor-thin.

In moments like this, medicine becomes a race against time. There’s no textbook that tells you what to do. You need to find someone, somewhere who’s faced this exact (or very similar) situation before, and succeeded. And you need that information in minutes, not hours.

A Lifeline in the Midwest

At the heart of America’s Midwest, the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics stands as a lifeline for patients scattered across what many describe as a medical desert. Serving a region that spans hundreds of miles and has limited specialty resources, this hospital receives the toughest cases in the Midwest: rare diseases, diagnostic mysteries, and high-stakes clinical puzzles that few clinicians have encountered before. For patients who travel hundreds of miles to reach specialized care, there is no second chance. The decisions made here must be right the first time. It is a reminder that in modern medicine, timing and evidence are as critical as skill.

In this moment, Dr. Maneet is facing one of those decisions. So he turns to Consensus, a research engine that rapidly analyzes millions of peer-reviewed studies. Among the results, it surfaces a translated Japanese case report describing a nearly identical scenario: a patient with PNH on complement-inhibitor therapy who underwent surgery safely through precise temperature control and pre-operative planning. This is the kind of study buried deep within the literature; the kind most physicians would never find in time.

Armed with the Japanese case report, Dr. Maneet worked with anesthesia and surgery to delay the operation, secure one of the few compatible blood units in advance, and move the case into a fully staffed OR. When the patient’s immune system did trigger hemolysis during surgery, those preparations made the difference. The patient survived the surgery and left the ICU stable; proof that the right evidence at the right moment can change an outcome.

The Power of Evidence in Real Time

Navigating evidence-based medicine means bridging the gap between established guidelines and the fast-moving frontier of research. Not every insight that matters for patient care has made it into official recommendations yet; especially in rare or evolving conditions.

Access to peer-reviewed, current research is critical in hospital medicine because guidelines cannot capture every clinical nuance. When patients present with rare diseases, new drugs, or overlapping complications, physicians must understand how others have navigated similar challenges. The most useful insights often come from newly published studies, real-world case reports, and emerging safety data that have not yet been incorporated into formal guidelines but can still inform life-saving decisions.

Consensus closes that gap by surfacing the most-cited and most-recent peer-reviewed evidence for any question, whether it is a new clinical trial, a recently identified safety signal, or a translated case report from across the world. Physicians can quickly locate trustworthy, relevant data and apply it with confidence when the clock is ticking.

This kind of rapid evidence access does not replace clinical judgment; it strengthens it, giving clinicians sharper context and confidence when making complex, time-sensitive decisions.

Why Clinicians Trust Consensus: A Different Kind of Medical AI

In an era where hospital AI systems have raised concerns about "hallucinating" patient information or misinterpreting charts, Dr. Maneet makes a critical distinction about why he trusts Consensus with life-or-death decisions.

"This isn't asking AI to diagnose or interpret," he explains. "It's using AI to search and organize peer-reviewed research; showing me the sources, not replacing my judgment."

The key difference: Consensus pulls exclusively from vetted, peer-reviewed literature and displays raw data with transparent sourcing. It doesn't try to think for the clinician; it acts as what Dr. Maneet calls "a superpowered research assistant" that retrieves and categorizes evidence while the physician does the critical work of interpretation and decision-making.

This structure fundamentally mitigates hallucination risk. Every result links directly to its source, allowing instant verification; something Dr. Maneet describes as "citation-first output where references are spot-on every time."

Try it yourself:
Search Consensus for any case report, complication, or rare scenario you’ve ever wondered about. Click the dropdown menu on the left-hand side of the Consensus search bar to enable Medical Mode.

From Principles to Practice

We often hear from clinicians who want to see how their peers are using Consensus in real-world settings; how they search, organize, and integrate research into their daily decision-making.

Dr. Maneet’s approach is one we hear echoed across the Consensus medical community: a balance of curiosity and structure. He pairs deep respect for evidence with a drive to learn faster and share knowledge more effectively with his team. So, we asked him to walk us through exactly how he uses Consensus to turn questions at the bedside into evidence-backed clarity.

Building an Evidence Workflow

Between patient rounds, Maneet captures what he learns in Notion, using Copy-with-Citations from Consensus to automatically structure and source every entry. But he doesn't stop at simple copy-paste.

He uses Notion's AI features to refine and reorganize the imported research, tailoring summaries specifically for high-stakes scenarios. For instance, when building his knowledge base on septic shock management, he restructures academic findings into "Day 1 Management" protocols; information formatted for immediate use during a crisis, not dense academic paragraphs.

"I'm not just absorbing information passively. I'm turning data into practical wisdom; actionable protocols I can deploy when seconds matter." - Dr. Maneet S.

Over time, he has built what he calls his "personal textbook," a living, searchable database of conditions, treatment strategies, and research summaries tied to real cases. By combining Consensus and Notion, he turns rapid literature discovery into lasting clinical knowledge. "Using both together is so good," he says. "I learn faster and teach better."

Why Dr. Maneet Trusts Consensus

• Citation-first output. “Spot-on references every time, I click through and they hold up.”

• Journal-prestige signal. Evaluating source quality quickly is a skill rarely taught explicitly in medical training, yet it's critical when time is limited. Consensus provides visual cues about journal authority and citation counts, helping clinicians cut through the flood of low-impact research and focus on the most trusted sources.

• Case-report discovery. Finds rare and overlooked studies that make a difference in real-world care.

• RIS/EndNote export. Keeps his growing library of evidence organized and searchable.

Looking Ahead

In a field where medical evidence evolves every day, Dr. Maneet represents a new generation of physicians who combine empathy with technology to make better, faster, more informed decisions. He and thousands of other clinicians use Consensus to stay current on the latest research and apply it confidently in real-world care.

Their stories continue to shape how we build Consensus and remind us why evidence quality matters so deeply in medicine. Each time we hear how clinicians are using Consensus to find clarity in complex situations, it reinforces our mission to make research more accessible, transparent, and actionable.

That feedback led directly to our newest innovation for healthcare professionals.

A Smarter Way to Search for Clinicians

Stories like Dr. Maneet’s are the reason we built Medical Mode, a focused search experience inside Consensus created for clinicians who need the highest-quality evidence quickly.

Over the past year, we have heard from thousands of healthcare professionals who rely on Consensus to find answers in moments that matter. Many asked for a more precise way to search, one that filters out noise and focuses only on the most trusted medical sources.

Medical Mode does exactly that. It searches about 8 million papers and 50,000 clinical guidelines drawn from the top 1,000 medical journals worldwide. Every source meets the highest standards of clinical reliability, with journal selection informed by metrics such as Impact Factor, SJR Score, and SciScore’s Rigor and Transparency Index.

It includes leading journals such as NEJM, JAMA, BMJ, Cochrane Reviews, Circulation, Blood, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Nature Medicine.

Medical Mode keeps everything clinicians already value about Consensus: natural-language search, citation-first results, and transparent sourcing. It simply focuses those capabilities on the most credible medical evidence available.

It is built for clinicians who cannot compromise on evidence quality and who want to move quickly from question to confidence.

Visit Consensus.app and try Medical Mode today to see how Consensus helps you find, understand, and trust the latest medical research faster.

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