Subject participation in research: Frankenstein

This chapter uses the film Frankenstein (1931) to set the stage for a discussion of research in general, and more particularly, how researchers should treat research participants. The key ethical conflict in research ethics is the need to balance the need to obtain findings beneficial to others with the need to respect and protect the rights of participants. Doctors engaged in research may have to draw certain lines between the needs of their research and the needs of those who participate in it. Some research contexts also prevent researchers from giving information as frequently as they would to individual patients in their clinical care. Doctors conducting this research, then, might be less able to tailor their clinical interventions to patients' individual and even idiosyncratic personal needs. Even when researchers can give participants as much information as they want, this itself may be ethically problematic. Some participants may want extensive information regarding the research's potential benefits and risks, while others may find this same amount of information overwhelming and unduly stressful. Therefore, researchers must determine the right amount of information to give in every protocol.