A medical student’s desire to practice the specialty that he or she finds most interesting should not outweigh the right of patients in a pluralistic society to receive a full range of legal medical services.
U.S. courts have ruled that device manufacturer representatives’ presence in the operating room does not make them responsible for the supervision of physicians or liable for the practice of unauthorized medicine.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
Research ethics should be included in the medical school curriculum so students and residents can fully understand the ethical implications of medical research.
Douglas E. Paull, MD, MS and Paul N. Uhlig, MD, MPA
Risk managers can help patient-subjects and clinician-researchers make informed novel device implantation decisions in the absence of preclinical trial data.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(11):E911-918. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.911.