Do the right thing

Abstract

You don't need to be involved in a case of scientific fraud to appreciate the importance of ethics in research. Ethical behavior — such as publishing only what is true, giving credit where it's due, and sharing materials when needed to permit replication of one's observations — has always been critical to the scientific enterprise. For science to progress, scientists must be able to trust one another's work and to use that work as a foundation upon which to base future research.High-profile cases of fraudulent behavior often cause permanent harm not only to those caught up in the investigations; they are bad for the whole scientific community. Such scandals reduce the likelihood that our findings will be accepted by the public and that our research will continue to be supported through public funds.In the US, many governmental agencies, colleges, universities and scientific societies have awoken to the crucial importance of responsible conduct and now actively promote, if not require, the teaching of research ethics. Such courses often follow a standard format. Students are asked to attend six or eight sessions held over as many weeks. At each session an introductory lecture is provided, often by a member of the philosophy department or the biomedical ethics program, then a case involving an ethical issue is discussed among the students. Obtaining credit for such programs usually depends on attendance or, occasionally, on the preparation of a brief report.What's wrong with this picture? Well, compare such an educational approach with the manner in which we teach students an important skill, such as critical analysis of the literature. When does such training begin, how long does it last, who provides it, and how is competency assessed? The contrast is obvious. Yet, is responsible conduct in science actually less important than critical reading? The answer can only be, no.It was just this line of thinking that brought the two of us to the realization that a serious and effective program in ethics for researchers must follow the same general approach we use to provide instruction in any of the other skills critical to doing research (see http://www.pitt.edu/∼survival/ and [1xTeaching ethics: Resources for researchers. Fischer, BA and Zigmond, MJ. Trends Neurosci. 1996; 19: 523–524Abstract | Full Text | Full Text PDFSee all References][1]). This means beginning the instruction in ethics as soon as students arrive and continuing it for as long as they remain, having the great bulk of the instruction done by faculty who are active researchers in the trainees' disciplines, infusing the training throughout the curriculum, making it clear that good science must of necessity be ethical science.These discussions on ethics should cover a wide range of topics, from high crimes (fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism) to misdemeanors (for example, honorary authorship, misleading graphs, mis-mentoring). But the discussions must go further. The difficult issues are those in which two or more values or obligations conflict. Do I take the data set with me to my next position so that the work (and my career) can continue, or do I leave it behind with my advisor who requested it but did not create it? Do I show my colleague a paper I have been asked to review because it will keep her from wasting time with a study that has now been done, or do I respect the author's confidentiality?And the discussions must go further still, because we cannot anticipate all of the ethical issues of the future. Who would have predicted 20 years ago that researchers today would have to deal with whether it is appropriate to submit to a journal data that they have already placed on their web site, or with the philosophical issues raised by our ability to clone higher organisms?How do we prepare students for what we cannot anticipate? Again, the analogy with how we deal with other aspects of the curriculum is instructive. We focus not on the details but on the process, on analysis and reasoning, in this case, reasoning about ethical issues [2xBebeau, MJ, Pimple, KD, Muskavitch, KMT, Borden, SL, and Smith, DH. See all References][2]. We offer a dilemma and then work with the students to identify the conflicting needs or obligations that form the basis for that dilemma. We ask them to determine who could be affected by the actions of the main characters and how. Then we ask the students to decide what actions should be taken and why.Of course, designing and implementing such a comprehensive training program requires time and effort — a brief series of discussions is much easier and might even allow us to ‘get by’. But the cost of success must be evaluated by comparison with the risk of failure. In this case, some extra effort seems justified; the continued health of science and our society may depend on it.