Experiences of the BMJ ethics committee

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7464.510

BMJ 2004;329:510-512 (28 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7464.510

Education and debate

Experiences of the BMJ ethics committee

Elizabeth Wager, freelance medical writer¹, BMJ ethics committee

¹ Sideview, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire HP27 9DE liz@sideview.demon.co.uk

The BMJ established its ethics committee nearly four years ago.What has it achieved and has it changed the journal's practice?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Introduction

The BMJ ethics committee was established to help editors withdifficult cases, to review policies that have ethical implications,and to expand the journal's coverage of ethics.¹ Unlike theCommittee on Publication Ethics (which considers anonymisedcases submitted by journal editors), the BMJ's committee discussespossible future policies as well as responding to specific issuesand sees full details of all cases (although they are anonymisedfor the minutes, which are available on the BMJ's website (http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/advice/bmj_ethics.shtml).

Since our inception in November 2000 we have met 13 times anddiscussed 70 cases from the editorial team. Three broad themeshave emerged from our discussions. These are:

Patient confidentiality
The journal's responsibilities topeople outside the publishingprocess, and
Research misconduct.

Patient confidentiality

Like many ethical issues, the confidentiality of the doctor-patientrelationship sounds straightforward until you are confrontedwith difficult cases. As part of our review of journal . . . [Full text of this article]

Journal's wider duty of care

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Research misconduct

What else has the committee done?

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