Surgical Ethics Education Resources #6

[Sent – 9 September 2018 to the 170+ surgeons et al of our Surgical Ethics (Education) Consortium]

Greetings.  For the ‘Surgical Ethics Education Resources’ #6 communication, I have inserted below the last/critical slide in a series of slides I prepared a few years ago as one way in ethics education conferences to enter the complexities and responsibilities inherent to human-based research.  The back story – the two years (2009-11) before I began working within our Surgery Department, I was the field researcher and qualitative research guide for a NIH-funded study led by a geriatrician in our Internal Medicine Department.  The study aimed to understand why African-American elderly St. Louis residents living near our medical school campus and teaching hospital are so underrepresented in and so hesitant to participate in research protocols relevant to the health disparities they face.  We conducted interviews and focus groups with African-American elderly residents throughout the nearby 26^th Ward, with our medical school’s research teams, and with hospital nurses, social workers, and interpreters who care for vulnerable patients.  The African-American elderly St. Louis residents who spoke with us referenced often the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis.  The last/critical slide in the set of slides draws from my interview with a seasoned nurse who coordinated/supervised our teaching hospital’s interpreter service.  The first ten slides (designed for use with audience-response technology) give the ethics conference participants an opportunity to assess the accuracy of their understanding of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis (to which virtually all have been exposed).  Then the last/critical slide asks the ethics conference participants a question they do not anticipate – “In your clinics and in the hospital, are you constantly giving patients or research participants ‘Tuskegee messages’?”

I welcome your questions and observations.  You are free to use the above set of slides as you think might be helpful in your surgical ethics education efforts.

Doug