Cross-cultural ethics should be regarded by physicians as an area of medical expertise that can help resolve conflicts that arise between the health traditions of international patients and those traditions that are upheld in the United States.
Newly arrived immigrants seeking health care in the United States encounter several problems including language, cultural, societal, and logistic barriers.
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.
Research is often conducted without the knowledge or consent of those whose tissues are banked and poses possible harms to social groups if information about a few members is unscientifically applied to all.
Some commentators say comparative trials of FDA-approved drugs are overburdened by current Common Rule regulations and that researchers should not be required to obtain explicit consent for participation in the most innocuous of these trials.
Harm occurs when race is used as a proxy for characteristics stereotypically ascribed to members of a group, much as the obligatory mention of age is used to indicate the typical patient’s expected health status and vitality.