AMA Journal of Ethics^®

Financial relationships are common, and ethical questions rightly emerge about how conflicts of interest compromise investigators’ approaches to research.

The AMA Code of Medical Ethics offers guidance for balancing need for safety with demand for innovation.

Shared decision making in research informed consent conversations is complex due to diverse and potentially divergent interests of investigators and patient-subjects.

Clinician-researchers deeply invested in data gathering are still obliged to respect a patient-subject’s right to stop being in research.

Drs Katrina Bramstedt and Ana Iltis discuss the development of QoL assessment tools to help patient-subjects considering reconstructive transplantation.

Facial transplantation must establish approaches to assessing QoL in candidates and recipients that use meaningful outcomes.

Therapeutic misconception—a false belief that individuals will benefit from participating in research—can bias informed consent. Ethics consultants can help by engaging participants’ and researchers’ understandings of risks and benefits and by asking good questions about the influences of researchers’ enthusiasm.

Gun violence prevention research can be furthered by private sector funding to develop and implement violence prevention programs in the clinic.

In conducting research abroad, clinicians should treat community members with dignity and as research partners.

In conducting research abroad, clinicians should treat community members with dignity and as research partners.