PrepTest 122, Section 1, Question 24
Ethicist: In general it is wrong to use(68 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- ADoctors often do(12 more words not shown)
- BIf patients knew(18 more words not shown)
- CNonconsensual medical research(18 more words not shown)
- DIn cases where(21 more words not shown)
- EThe right of(22 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Learning a better treatment could be valuable. Does that make it acceptable to bypass the patient's consent?
The ethicist starts by recognizing a patient's right to choose with full information. That makes sense: someone offered an experimental treatment should ordinarily get to decide whether to accept it. Then the ethicist says we cannot gain certain emergency-treatment knowledge unless we sometimes proceed without consent.
I can see the dilemma. Imagine an unconscious patient after a crash. Trying a different procedure might teach us something useful, but the patient might have preferred the best established treatment. Being unable to ask doesn't, by itself, settle whether experimenting is justified.
What we’re looking for
The conclusion comes down in favor of allowing some restricted research. So what makes the possible knowledge important enough to override the right we started with? That's the connection I'd want for the necessary-assumption question. The ethicist needn't favor every experiment or every sacrifice, but must think the benefit can justify bypassing consent in at least some cases.
Working the answers
- A
Doctors could know a great deal about the best available treatment and still have more to learn from research. The argument doesn't require frequent ignorance about what to do for individual patients. Its issue is whether gaining additional knowledge can justify an exception to consent.
- B
This proposes a separate reason to keep patients uninformed: their knowledge might affect the results. The ethicist never relies on that possibility. The argument could make the same case about emergency research even if a patient's awareness had no effect on the research outcome.
- C
This adds a requirement about benefiting the particular patient. The ethicist argues that some research should be allowed to gain knowledge about emergency treatment; the passage doesn't require that each permitted experiment be highly likely to benefit its participant.
The benefit might instead concern future patients. Whether that would justify an experiment is the very issue we are examining. C imposes a particular restriction the argument hasn't committed to. It isn't wrong merely because it uses “only if”; it is wrong because this specific condition isn't required.
- D
Uncertainty about the best treatment doesn't make the patient's right disappear. A doctor could explain, “We don't know which option is best. Here are the alternatives,” and still let the patient choose. The ethicist seeks permission for some restricted exceptions, not a rule stripping the right from everyone whose best option is unknown.
- ECorrect
The possible benefits must outweigh the right to informed consent in at least some emergencies. Otherwise, the ethicist's reason for allowing the research would never overcome the very objection the argument recognizes at the start. This doesn't say that knowledge always wins, that an experiment must succeed, or that consent no longer matters. It supplies the limited tradeoff the conclusion needs.
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