Ethics in research and publication

Abstract

Medical research and publication serve to promote the scientific integrity and efficacy of the medical profession. The ethical principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence demand that physicians strive to advance medical knowledge so as to improve patient’s lives and avoid harmful or ineffective patient care. The objective of medical research is to seek scientific truths and support these ethical principles. The integrity of clinical investigation involves the just and honest conduct of experimentation, the honest analysis and reporting of data, and then, the fair peer review and publication of these investigations. Research and the publication of research executed dishonestly divert the search for factuality and defile the medical literature. Within the last two decades, several clinical researchers from various specialties whose publications profoundly influenced the practice of anesthesiology were guilty of extensive research fraud and misconduct, and therein, adversely affected the safe practice of anesthesiology.