Have been a little surprised about the lack of ethics conversations being had about this issue right now, so thought I would post to start one here. Curious to hear about people's thoughts on research in the present climate and how your respective institutions are handling things.
We have largely been closed aside from studies with imminent life-saving health benefits (generally not psychiatry/psychology - think "We won't stop your experimental chemotherapy"). We're now in the process of gradually restarting, but I am also in a state that is still surging and I <really> question the wisdom of that decision. They are encouraging everything possible to be moved online, but obviously an enormous portion of most clinical research still requires in-person components. Even if I move diagnostic interviews online, we still need to do blood draws, EKGs, MRIs, etc. Given I also study folks at higher-risk for COVID complications, I'm considering delaying restarting my research even when the institution allows me to reopen recruitment. That said, this is all extramural funding. So far, NIH and foundations have all been incredibly supportive but I'm not sure how long that will last if the institution is allowing a restart. I also have high-risk family members so am being <extra> careful and am very reluctant to ask my technicians to do anything I would hesitate to do myself. I might feel differently if I was running treatment studies with direct participant benefits (none of my current protocols have a treatment component). All of this is further compounded by the topics my current funding examines...(at risk of outing myself for anyone seriously motivated to figure that out and hasn't yet) contextual influences on drug use motivation (particularly access to and pleasure derived from non-drug rewards - most commonly going out to do fun activities or spending time with friends/family) and GPS movement patterns in relation to psychopathology. Needless to say, both these things are very heavily impacted by COVID. Even if I start collecting GPS data right now, I think in the current environment any signal relating GPS to psychopathology is likely to be completely overwhelmed by signal from things like political views, essential job status, belief in science, etc. So I'm no longer confident the research is even worth doing in present circumstances. All of which further pushes me in the "Don't restart" direction. Yet it is soft-money. I have mixed feelings about continuing to eat up taxpayer or foundation dollars on mine and staff salaries while not doing the research even if NIH is OK with it right now. I'm certainly far from idle, just submitted my first R01, have 6 papers under review and 3 more in progress....but still. In soft-money, my salary is being covered to do research, not to write other papers. With no potential direct benefit to participants, minimal likelihood of the research being viable at present (in my view anyways) and at least somewhat increased risk of serious harm to participants just by nature of them having to travel to our research site....I just feel the risk/benefit ratio is unacceptable to me now. Yet I'm on the TT path and even with a clock extension....killing two of my first three major grants probably won't be good for my career. So this feels like quite the ethical quagmire.
Anyways - I'm sharing the above just to give some context and share some examples of my thoughts on the issue. This isn't about "solving" my situation (as I don't think there is a solution). Just wanted to get some conversation going on the broader topic since I feel like we're so heavily bogged down in the logistics at my institution right now, no one is stepping back to look at the bigger picture.
We have largely been closed aside from studies with imminent life-saving health benefits (generally not psychiatry/psychology - think "We won't stop your experimental chemotherapy"). We're now in the process of gradually restarting, but I am also in a state that is still surging and I <really> question the wisdom of that decision. They are encouraging everything possible to be moved online, but obviously an enormous portion of most clinical research still requires in-person components. Even if I move diagnostic interviews online, we still need to do blood draws, EKGs, MRIs, etc. Given I also study folks at higher-risk for COVID complications, I'm considering delaying restarting my research even when the institution allows me to reopen recruitment. That said, this is all extramural funding. So far, NIH and foundations have all been incredibly supportive but I'm not sure how long that will last if the institution is allowing a restart. I also have high-risk family members so am being <extra> careful and am very reluctant to ask my technicians to do anything I would hesitate to do myself. I might feel differently if I was running treatment studies with direct participant benefits (none of my current protocols have a treatment component). All of this is further compounded by the topics my current funding examines...(at risk of outing myself for anyone seriously motivated to figure that out and hasn't yet) contextual influences on drug use motivation (particularly access to and pleasure derived from non-drug rewards - most commonly going out to do fun activities or spending time with friends/family) and GPS movement patterns in relation to psychopathology. Needless to say, both these things are very heavily impacted by COVID. Even if I start collecting GPS data right now, I think in the current environment any signal relating GPS to psychopathology is likely to be completely overwhelmed by signal from things like political views, essential job status, belief in science, etc. So I'm no longer confident the research is even worth doing in present circumstances. All of which further pushes me in the "Don't restart" direction. Yet it is soft-money. I have mixed feelings about continuing to eat up taxpayer or foundation dollars on mine and staff salaries while not doing the research even if NIH is OK with it right now. I'm certainly far from idle, just submitted my first R01, have 6 papers under review and 3 more in progress....but still. In soft-money, my salary is being covered to do research, not to write other papers. With no potential direct benefit to participants, minimal likelihood of the research being viable at present (in my view anyways) and at least somewhat increased risk of serious harm to participants just by nature of them having to travel to our research site....I just feel the risk/benefit ratio is unacceptable to me now. Yet I'm on the TT path and even with a clock extension....killing two of my first three major grants probably won't be good for my career. So this feels like quite the ethical quagmire.
Anyways - I'm sharing the above just to give some context and share some examples of my thoughts on the issue. This isn't about "solving" my situation (as I don't think there is a solution). Just wanted to get some conversation going on the broader topic since I feel like we're so heavily bogged down in the logistics at my institution right now, no one is stepping back to look at the bigger picture.
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