As Rothman discusses in Strangers by the Bedside medical accountability and ethics is such a complex idea. At first glimpse one would think judging ethics on medical procedures and experiments (do no harm) would be rather straight forward but this obviously couldn't be further from the truth. As Jesse points out without medical oversight doctors can do whatever they want (a rather scary idea indeed), but by masking doctors and researchers behind lawyers and paperwork only seems to insulate them from their patients. This seems a lot like the one premise from Freakonomics stating that incentives make people do strange things with often unforeseeable consequences. The part I've found most interesting thus far is how doctors experimented on relatives or people close to the family (in-laws maybe?). How best to ensure medical oversight then knowing that if any mistakes were made your sons/daughters life could depend on it. Would BP have been willing to have their children work on their oil rigs? Would people interested in Fracking be willing to drill in their own back yards? Something tells me no and maybe that should be a telling indicator...
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