Dr Jennifer T. McIntosh joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Dr Mona Shattell: “How Should Suicide Prevention and Healing Be Expressed as Goals of Inpatient Psychiatric Unit Design?”
Dr Brendan D. Kelly joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Dr Róisín Plunkett: “Should Dignity Preservation Be a Precondition for Safety and a Design Priority for Healing in Inpatient Psychiatry Spaces?”
Dr Allie Slemon joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Shivinder Dhari: “When Should Inpatient Psychiatric Care Include Access to the Outdoors, Despite Elopement or Other Risks?”
Dr Carrie Tamarelli joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Angela Cao and Dr Rebecca Grossman-Kahn: “Should Patients’ Boredom in Locked Inpatient Psychiatric Units Be Considered Iatrogenic Harm?”
Alice J. Liu joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Drs David S. Im and Laura D. Hirshbein: “What Does the History of Inpatient Psychiatric Unit Design Tell Us About Balancing Safety and Healing for Patients With Suicidal Behaviors?”
Clinical equipoise—the idea that the community of medical experts is uncertain about the relative therapeutic merits of the arms of a clinical trial at its outset—mitigates physicians’ responsibility for patients’ poor outcomes when patients are assigned to the control arm or are harmed by an investigational agent.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(12):1108-1115. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.12.ecas1-1512.
Elizabeth Lee Daugherty, MD, MPH and Douglas B. White, MD, MA
Opportunities to advance scientific knowledge may arise during humanitarian crises, but their presence does not justify suspension of the ethical foundations governing human subjects research.