The law and medical ethics demand reconsideration of inflexible technical standards that are vulnerable to litigation under disability discrimination laws.
AMA J Ethics. 2016;18(10):1010-1016. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2016.18.10.hlaw1-1610.
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.
Protecting one’s moral integrity may require a conscience clause that protects positive conscience claims by permitting individuals to perform actions that are otherwise prohibited by legal or institutional rules.
Margaret Little, PhD and Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MA, MD
Society is best served by an approach to conscience that combines a progressive understanding of patients’ needs, a nuanced determination of when those needs translate into claims, and a limited role for conscientious refusal.
Surgery’s unique characteristics, including difficulties in standardizing, blinding, and recruiting participants for clinical trials, render problematic the application of evidence-based standards to surgery.