Journal of medical ethics
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Journal of medical ethics · Apr 2011
Retractions in the scientific literature: is the incidence of research fraud increasing?
Scientific papers are retracted for many reasons including fraud (data fabrication or falsification) or error (plagiarism, scientific mistake, ethical problems). Growing attention to fraud in the lay press suggests that the incidence of fraud is increasing. ⋯ Levels of misconduct appear to be higher than in the past. This may reflect either a real increase in the incidence of fraud or a greater effort on the part of journals to police the literature. However, research bias is rarely cited as a reason for retraction.
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Journal of medical ethics · Apr 2011
CommentGeneral practitioners' conflicts of interest, the paramountcy principle and safeguarding children: a psychodynamic contribution.
Wainwright and Gallagher propose that when child protection concerns emerge significant difficulties arise for General Practitioners because of conflicts between the individual interests of children and parents who are their patients and the Paramountcy Principle. From a psychodynamic perspective their analysis does not give sufficient weight to the nature of personal as opposed to interpersonal conflict of a conscious or unconscious nature. When issues of major import arise, ordinary parenting inevitably involves parents in putting their children's needs first if competing possibilities occur. ⋯ Parents' own best interests are served by securing their children's safety and welfare. An appreciation of this is crucial in order to implement child protection procedures appropriately. Errors may occur because the complex emotions and relationships involved lead professionals to experience themselves as potential agents of harm rather than benefit.
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Journal of medical ethics · Feb 2011
Facebook activity of residents and fellows and its impact on the doctor-patient relationship.
Facebook is an increasingly popular online social networking site. The purpose of this study was to describe the Facebook activity of residents and fellows and their opinions regarding the impact of Facebook on the doctor-patient relationship. ⋯ Residents and fellows frequently use Facebook and display personal information on their profiles. Insufficient privacy protection might have an impact the doctor-patient relationship.
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Journal of medical ethics · Feb 2011
What do our patients understand about their trial participation? Assessing patients' understanding of their informed consent consultation about randomised clinical trials.
Ethically, informed consent regarding randomised controlled trials (RCTs) should be understandable to patients. The patients can then give free consent or decline to participate in a RCT. Little is known about what patients really understand in consultations about RCTs. ⋯ This study fills an important empirical research gap of what is ethically demanded in an RCT consultation and what is really understood by patients. The qualitative approach enabled us to obtain new results about cancer patients' understanding of informed consent, to clarify patients' needs and to develop new ideas to optimise the informed consent.
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Journal of medical ethics · Feb 2011
Retractions in the scientific literature: do authors deliberately commit research fraud?
Papers retracted for fraud (data fabrication or data falsification) may represent a deliberate effort to deceive, a motivation fundamentally different from papers retracted for error. It is hypothesised that fraudulent authors target journals with a high impact factor (IF), have other fraudulent publications, diffuse responsibility across many co-authors, delay retracting fraudulent papers and publish from countries with a weak research infrastructure. ⋯ This study reports evidence consistent with the 'deliberate fraud' hypothesis. The results suggest that papers retracted because of data fabrication or falsification represent a calculated effort to deceive. It is inferred that such behaviour is neither naïve, feckless nor inadvertent.