An Observational Descriptive Study of IRB Decision Making

Background: Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are the primary organizations designed to protect research subjects from harm and assure that they participate voluntarily. At the same time, many researchers feel that they intrude into the research process without making research safer. Goals: • Identify which issues about applications are the focus of IRB attention; e.g., the scientific validity of a protocol, issues of risk, informed consent • Clarify how, if at all, the occupants of different roles (chair, community member, attorney, scientific expert, etc.) differ in their discussion of applications • Describe how IRB members identify problems in applications; what information resources they use and how they use them • Identify how IRBs organize the work of application review through the use of staff, pre-meeting review, and formatl meeting

Early intervention in schizophrenia: three frameworks for guiding ethical inquiry

Psychiatric research is making important strides toward early detection and treatment of schizophrenia. Discovery of genetic markers, identifiable prodromes, and low-risk interventions fuel this vital scientific movement. At the same time, investigators and clinicians are studying the ethical questions that arise whenever the bounds of diagnosis and treatment are evolving rapidly. This ethical analysis generally falls within three dominant frameworks of bioethics: the conceptualization of disease, scientific uncertainty, and risk-factor ethics. These frameworks are explored as potential guides for directing ethical inquiry in early intervention

Not just welfare over justice: Ethics in forensic consultation

The ethics of forensic professionalism is often couched in terms of competing individual and societal values. Indeed, the welfare of individuals is often secondary to the requirements of society, especially given the public nature of courts of law, forensic hospitals, jails, and prisons. We explore the weaknesses of this dichotomous approach to forensic ethics, offering an analysis of Psychology’s historical narrative especially relevant to the national security and correctional settings. We contend that a richer, more robust ethical analysis is available if practitioners consider the multiple perspectives in the forensic encounter, and acknowledge the multiple influences of personal, professional, and social values. The setting, context, or role is not sufficient to determine the ethics of forensic practice

The revolution in forensic ethics: narrative, compassion, and a robust professionalism

For 5 decades modern forensic psychiatry has struggled with the seminal question of which master it serves: is it a field that answers chiefly to the law or to psychiatry? It is the law, after all, that privileges forensic experts in the courtroom, but it is psychiatry that grounds them in the medical ethics of care and cure. In reviewing the historical narrative of modern forensic ethics, this article explores whether the field has developed to the point that it is insufficient to apply legal or medical ethics alone. Rather, a more robust professionalism of broader perspectives, mixed theories, and basic ethical habits and skills may foster better understanding of the complex intersection of psychiatry and the law