An emerging medical ethics issue is whether to delay posting pathology reports to electronic health records (EHR) to allow clinicians time to follow up.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(8):826-832. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.8.pfor1-1608.
Research in the PED and PICU is essential to medical understanding of the efficacy of emergency interventions. Researchers must minimize the additional stress that consent and participation in research entail for pediatric patients and their families.
Eitan Neidich, Alon B. Neidich, David A. Axelrod, MD, and John P. Roberts, MD
Geographic disparities in availability of organs for transplant have spawned for-profit companies that help patients get on waitlists in more than one region and arrange travel for them if an organ becomes available.
Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MD, MA and Ruth R. Faden, PhD, MPH
Participation in a research study—in which there are rigorous standards and close monitoring—may be a safer context for the use of medications in pregnancy than the clinical setting, where the evidence base is lacking.
Physician-journalists balance the ethical requirements of two professions with competing goals. Physicians must “do patients no harm ” and “keep secret” what they “see or hear”; journalists seek out and disseminate information in service of public enlightenment.
When identifying underrepresented subgroups deserving of special recruitment efforts for research participation, social determinants of health other than race should be given more consideration.
In 2014, the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health published proposals to expand clinical trial registration requirements and to promote sharing of clinical research data, but these and other efforts at improving data transparency and access need to be supported by changes in the academic reward structure and significant funding.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(12):1152-1159. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.12.pfor1-1512.
Susanne Sheehy, BM BCh, MRCP, DTM&H and Joel Meyer, BM BCh, MRCP
The decline in numbers of healthy volunteers who participate in clinical trials has the potential to become a key rate-limiting factor in vaccine development.