Medical researchers' ancillary clinical care responsibilities

Belsky and Richardson highlight an important issue in the conduct of
research trials and propose a potentially useful framework for dealing
with the ethical problems raised.

What appears to be missing however is an exploration of the issue
from the participants' perspective. It may be clear to the researcher that
entrustment is partial. Participants may however,believe (rightly or
wrongly) that by agreeing to participate, they are fully entrusting the
researcher with responsibility for their well-being.

Thus, there may be a need to delineate the limits of entrustment
clearly in the process of obtaining consent. Whether this is practical or
feasible is uncertain, but it would be useful and interesting to know what
participants think they are entrusting to researchers when they agree to
participate in a trial.

Competing interests:
None declared