Research ethics—new standards

Excerpt

The pace of development in scientific knowledge and the sustained progress in technological advances make paediatric surgery a field among several in medicine in which new knowledge, tools, and skills can manipulate disease pathways and divert otherwise predictable outcomes. More than ever before, surgical decision-making involves ethical considerations as a part of daily clinical duty. Ethical guidance on difficult and contentious clinical issues evolves through informed discussion, consensus, and acceptance of advice from expert professional bodies such as the British Association of Paediatric Surgery (http://baps.org.uk)—one of several that deliberate and formulate recommendations on codes and standards for its members. It is thus all the more important that this same spirit of standard setting and provision of an ethical framework in clinical practice also extends to the conduct and publication of medical research. …