Debate reflective summary on ethical concepts and team research skills

¶ … scientist's need to acquire knowledge trumped the patient's or research subject's rights to autonomy and other, personal individualistic rights. The affirmative side advocated a utilitarian approach to ethics. Utilitarianism deems that when there is a conflict between the rights of one group and those of another, the decision-making prioritization should favor the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The affirmative stated that when conducting medical research, the emphasis from a utilitarian perspective should be on the potential knowledge that can be gained from the research that can help future generations, rather than specifically how the research can benefit the research subjects. This means that some forms of deception regarding the purpose of the research derived from the study is ethically acceptable.

The negative side of the debate invoked a deontological ethical argument, pointing out that informed consent is a widely-accepted medical principle as defined in the Code of Conduct for Doctors in Australia and also the general principle of non-maleficence that has always been part of the ethical worldview of the medical profession. Ever since the Nuremburg trials, the potential dangers of medical research, as well as the potential benefits have been of great ethical concern to the medical community.

The negative side also gave specific emphasis on what can occur if researchers believe they are not bound by professional ethics, only the ethics of finding out new scientific knowledge. Vulnerable research subjects in the past have been exposed to a worsening of their physical condition, new diseases, psychological distress, and even emotional and psychological abuse. Research subjects make considerable sacrifices for the name of science, giving up their time and often forgoing treatments with known benefits for experimental procedures or even potentially no treatment at all if they are randomly placed in a control group. Given these sacrifices, the negative side of the debate argued that there is an ethical obligation to ensure that patients fully understand the risks that they are taking.

Although in this particular debate, the affirmative side took a utilitarian view and the negative side took a deontological view of the debate, it is equally possible to argue from a utilitarian point-of-view that informed consent is superior because members of the public will not trust the medical establishment and agree to be in clinical trials if they are fearful of what could be the result. Before I participated in this debate I had given little thought to the risks of medical research, including the risks of being part of a control group if one has a deadly illness, and the debate underlined to me the need to have legal and ethical guidelines to protect individual patients' rights.