Guest post by Rebecca H. Li and Holly Fernandez Lynch One of the most important responsibilities of a clinical project lead at a biotech company or an academic research team is to generate clinical trial protocols. The protocol dictates how a trial will be conducted and details background information on prior research, scientific objectives, study […]
Category: Resource
Making the Jump to a Medico-Legal Career
Guest Post by Daniel Sokol On a number of occasions, I have been asked by early career ethicists about the move from ethics to law, or the wisdom of seeking a legal qualification to supplement their ethical knowledge. In the UK, this can be achieved remarkably quickly. This blog post is an answer to those […]
Eating Disorders and Ramadan
One of those things that’d simply never occurred to me before was highlighted a few days ago in a story on Buzzfeed: how do you reconcile Ramadan fasting with recovery from an eating disorder? Indeed: can you reconcile them at all? “Food is obviously a big part of the holy month,” Sofia says. “Usually after […]
What should Investigators be Doing with Unexpected Findings in Brain Imaging Research?
Guest Post by Caitlin Cole Incidental findings in brain imaging research are common. Investigators can discover these unexpected findings of potential medical significance in up to 70% of their research scans. However, there are no standards to guide investigators as to whether they should actively search for these findings or which, if any, they should […]
Animals in US Laboratories: Who Counts, Who Matters?
Guest post by Alka Chandna How many animals are experimented on in laboratories? It’s a simple question, the answer to which provides a basic parameter to help us wrap our heads around the increasingly controversial and ethically harrowing practice of locking animals in cages and conducting harmful procedures on them that are often scary, painful, and […]
The Death of Sidaway: Values, Judgments and Informed Consent
Guest post by Kirsty Keywood (University of Manchester) On 11th March Nadine Montgomery won her case before the UK Supreme Court to gain compensation for the failure of her obstetrician to warn her of risks associated with the vaginal delivery of a large infant – a risk which she would have averted by requesting a […]
Autonomy and the Circumcision Wars
Guest Post by Akim McMath In December of last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its proposed new recommendations on male circumcision. The verdict? Circumcision provides major benefits with minimal risks. These benefits accrue whether circumcision is performed in infancy or later on in life. Circumcision may even help to stem the […]
Physicians and Euthanasia: What about Psychiatric Illness, Dementia and Weltschmerz?
Guest Post by Eva Bolt In the Netherlands, requests for euthanasia are not uncommon. A physician who grants a request for euthanasia in the Netherlands is not prosecuted if the criteria for due care (described in the Euthanasia Act) are met. An example of one of these criteria is the presence of unbearable suffering without […]
Saatchi Bill – Update
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. It turns out that the version of the Medical Innovation Bill about which I wrote this morning isn’t the most recent: the most recent version is available here. Naïvely, I’d assumed that the government would make sure the latest version was the easiest to find. Silly me. Here’s the updated version […]
Adrenaline, Information Provision and the Benefits of a Non-Randomised Methodology
Guest Post by Ruth Stirton and Lindsay Stirton, University of Sheffield One of us – Ruth – was on Newsnight on Wednesday the 13th August talking about the PARAMEDIC2 trial. The trial is a double blind, individually randomised, placebo controlled trial of adrenaline v. normal saline injections in cardiac arrest patients treated outside hospital. In simpler terms, if […]