Ethics: Training to do the right thing

General Article

New center-based program sets requirements for ongoing education in responsible conduct of research

Lee Strucker (above left), serves as manager and consultant for the center's ethics education oversight committee on which Dr. Brian Beard serves. Photo by Todd McNaught

Case study #1:

You are a grad student and friend of a student in the lab next door. Your friend has been very unhappy and just wants to graduate. At his last committee meeting, it was decided that when the experiments for his paper are complete, he could leave. These experiments were not working well and your friend confided in you that he fudged some data to finish up the paper and get out of school. What do you do?

Should you tell someone? If so, whom? Or do you say nothing and live with the consequences of your friend's actions — and your own?

Formal training in responsible conduct of research (RCR) is a recommendation for many new scientists but mandatory only for individuals supported by National Institute of Health training grants. This month, Fred Hutchinson breaks new ground with the implementation of an on-campus Research Ethics Education Program designed to help scientists shape answers to questions like these. Created in 2003 from the center's Research Ethics Training Committee's recommendations and input from faculty and students, the program requires all center-based postdoctoral researchers, clinical fellows and graduate students to complete six approved ethics-education events. The events include lectures, panel discussions, Web-based training, colloquia and case study discussion groups.

Participants are encouraged to complete two events per year. Trainees whose tenure is less than a year are advised to attend at least one, if timing permits. The program curriculum — shaped by a Research Ethics Oversight Committee composed of faculty, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students — will supplement, not replace, ongoing RCR discussions between students and mentors.

"The research-ethics-training program formalizes and reinforces the center's commitment to research integrity and ethical conduct, which is integral to the scientific process," said Dr. Lee Hartwell, center president and director. "In addition to serving our staff and community, the training will serve as a model for other institutions in the area of RCR," he said.

"We provide a lot of flexibility in our program including case-study discussions as well as lectures," said Lee Strucker, manager of the program. "Working on case studies gives you a chance to practice moral reasoning, because the time to prepare for an ethical issue is before it happens.

"Most of us think that we can easily make ethical decisions and that is probably because we haven't come across one yet that is difficult," he said.

When an issue does arise, there is seldom a clear-cut right or wrong, said Dr. Sue Biggins, a faculty member from the Basic Sciences Division and member of the oversight committee.

"It's not like radiation safety where if you work with radioactivity, you wear a labcoat and gloves. It is going to be different for every lab and every person," she said. "How I perceive what's right and wrong can be very different from how someone else would. I think the whole idea is to get people talking and thinking and to give them some guidelines for setting ethical standards."

Consideration for prior training

Participants may receive credit for prior ethics education, but receiving such training in graduate school is probably more the exception than the rule.

"In my grad-school training, I never had an ethics class, and I think it is beneficial to start thinking about ethical issues early on," said Dr. Brian Beard, a Clinical Research Division postdoc and member of the oversight committee.

"A lot of science is based on ethics — how you run your lab, how you publish your work. Sometimes the answers are obvious, but a lot of it is a judgment call," he said. "If you are working with human subjects you have to consider what kind of information is privileged? On the issue of authorship, do you list everyone who contributes to a project? When does it go from giving assistance to where the person's name should be on the paper?"

"For me, I have a general rule — if someone contributes anything to a paper, they go on the paper," Biggins said. "In my mind, authorship is not just about taking credit, it's also about taking responsibility for your work."

She handles questions about the proper attribution of credit in her letters of reference. "I'll just make it really clear that even though there are five authors, 98 percent of the work was done by this first author and that they were the intellectual driving force behind the project," she said.

Dilemmas on ethical research are not limited to new scientists. They can happen to anyone at anytime.

Case Study #2

A principal investigator is reviewing a manuscript for a student in another lab and realizes the data in the paper shows that a project a postdoc is working on in the investigator's lab will never pan out. What is the PI's responsibility?

You didn't mean to review a paper that posed a conflict of interest, so as you realize you have a conflict, do you stop reading and immediately notify the editor? You have acquired, in a confidential process, information that affects someone in your lab. What is your responsibility to the author? On the flip side, what if you are that lab student or postdoc and you discover your adviser has information that could save you from wasting six months on a project the adviser knows will never work. Is it wrong for them to withhold that information?

Ethics-education participants will discuss answers to case studies like this throughout the training. In addition to RCR information given to new staff members at orientation, books and videos on RCR issues are available at the Arnold Library. To learn more about research-ethics education at the center, including program requirements, upcoming events, policies and guidelines for the responsible conduct of research and resources for teaching ethics, visit http://www.fhcrc.org/education/courses/research_ehtics/.

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Research-ethics education program overview

• Biomedical Research Integrity Series (BRI)
  Center faculty and staff collaborate closely with the organizers of this University of Washington program to plan speakers and choose appropriate case studies for this summer series. Four BRI lectures (featuring local and national speakers both at the UW and Fred Hutchinson) as well as linked case-study discussions at the center provide the foundation for the Research Ethics Education Program.
• A yearly ethics colloquium
  This half or full-day event (scheduled for 2005) features renowned experts discussing, in lectures and small groups, issues like stem cells and human cloning, genetics testing, publication and human-tissue research.
• Web-based ethics training
  The center currently uses Columbia University's Responsible Conduct of Research courses. Each training module counts as one event.
• Human-subjects training
  This training, offered through the center's Institutional Review Office, is available online or in person and is open to all center staff.
• Animal-research training
  Training in the use of animals in research is available through the center's Institutional Review Office.

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Oversight committee members

Faculty

• Dr. Paul O'Donnell, CRD
• Dr. Kieren Marr, CRD
• Dr. Adam Geballe, HB
• Dr. Garnet Anderson, PHS
• Dr. Sue Biggins, BS
• Kathleen Shannon Dorsey, research nurse, CRD
• Dr. Beverly Torok-Storb, CRD
• Dr. Polly Newcomb, PHS
• Dr. Steve Schwartz, PHS

Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers

• Dr. Sam Whiting, postdoc, CRD
• Dr. Brian Beard, postdoc, CRD
• Dr. Shannon Payne, postdoc, HB
• Lisa Kim, grad student, HB
• Dr. Chen Gang, postdoc, PHS
• Jessica Chubak, grad student, PHS

Advisory members

• Dr. Nancy Haigwood, scientific omsbudsperson
• Dr. Wendy Law, Administration and Basic Sciences
• Dr. Maxine Linial, Basic Science, designated UW Biomedical Research Integrity Series liaison
• Han Nachtrieb, HR
• Dr. Karen Peterson, HB, Interdisciplinary Training
Committee facilitator
• Lee Strucker, manager, Research Ethics Education Program

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