Conducting community-based research in the community where one resides demands careful planning, sensitivity to community members’ privacy, and a strong commitment to full and respectful communication.
Physicians working in close-knit communities, whether small towns or urban neighborhoods, have to manage relationships with people who may be simultaneously patients and neighbors, friends, and business associates.
Physicians’ ethical obligations to disclose conflicts of interest to patients and to obtain their informed consent for treatment are particularly critical when proposed treatments are experimental.