Ethics involving research

[grinningrice]

Hello, I am a student at Purdue University. I am doing a research paper on the ethics of research in Emergency surgery. I Was wondering if anyone could give me their insight on this. Personally, I think the biggest problem is informed consent, who is the surrogate that can give it? Is it ethical, legal, and morally right to ask this surrogate? Thank you

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[docB]

Hello, I am a student at Purdue University. I am doing a research paper on the ethics of research in Emergency surgery. I Was wondering if anyone could give me their insight on this. Personally, I think the biggest problem is informed consent, who is the surrogate that can give it? Is it ethical, legal, and morally right to ask this surrogate? Thank you

Is your question specifically about surrogates? If so we use surrogates to make all kinds of decisions. Eg. remove the vent, full court press, consent for interventions, consent for transfer. If the pt is unable then it's reasonable to use an appropriate surrogate (spouse, relative, life partner, etc.) for all aspects of care in cluding research.

If your question is about doing research on non-consentabel, emergent patients period then I would say that the medical community and society have decided that the benefits outweigh the risks. As will all research IRBs review and control the studies. Studies are designed to minimize the chance that a patient might be randomized to an arm with clearly worse treatment (Eg. antibiotic A vs. antibiotic B vs. nothing for sepsis).

For some good, recent examples of emergency treatment research on non-consentable pts check out the Amiodarone and public access defibrillator studies.