Compare and Contrast of Articles on Medical Ethics in Research

This report presents a comparative analysis of three articles focused on ethical considerations within medical research and practice. The assignment identifies and contrasts key concepts such as informed consent, ethical performance appraisals, and biobank governance across the selected articles (Langhof, Schwietering & Strech (2019); Labig (2009); and Thørrisen, Skogen, Kjeken, Jensen, Aas (2019)). The analysis highlights the shared emphasis on ethical research and practice, particularly the importance of informed consent and the need for ethical performance appraisals. The report discusses the implications of unethical practices, such as organizational goals conflicting with patient health goals, and suggests recommendations for healthcare practitioners, including proper training and the use of reliable and valid measures to ensure ethical conduct and quality patient care. The conclusion underscores the critical role of ethics in ensuring high standards of quality healthcare provision and encourages further efforts to address ethical challenges within the medical field.

Running head: ARTICLE COMPARE AND CONTRAST 1
Article Compare and Contrast
Name
Institutional Affiliation

ARTICLE COMPARE AND CONTRAST 2
ARTICLE COMPARE AND CONTRAST
Introduction
The current practices and perspectives regarding employee training in the medical field
are critical issues that need a comprehensive understanding. In this assignment, a compare-
contrast paper is presented using the three articles including Langhof, Schwietering & Strech
(2019); Labig (2009); and Thørrisen, Skogen, Kjeken, Jensen, Aas (2019). This is done by first
identifying the key concepts which can be compared or contrasted and then organizing the
findings around the key points arising from the compare and contrast and finally offering a
conclusion that summarizes the findings.
Identify Key Concepts That May Be Compared/Contrasted
The key concepts include informed consent, ethics in research, practice evaluation of
sample and data access, public involvement, ethics reporting as well as incidental findings, ethics
review, priority setting and sample ownership (Thørrisen, Skogen, Kjeken, Jensen & Aas (2019).
Other key concepts from Labig (2009) include ethics, informed consent, ethical performance
appraisals, performance appraisal, quality medicine and effects of current appraisal practices on
physicians in minimizing adverse outcomes on delivery of quality healthcare. From the
Thørrisen et al. (2019), the concepts included ethics in research, informed consent, assurance of
confidentiality, and voluntary participation. Other concepts were written informed consent and
approval of the study. The study also used such concepts as carrying out study according to
relevant guidelines alongside regulations.
Organize Your Findings around Key Points Emerging From Comparing/Contrasting
From the above findings, it is clear that the three articles all focus on ethics consideration
in research. This was one of the shared concepts across the three articles which means that it is

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important for all researchers to ensure that they undertake their studies based on a high degree of
ethical consideration. As was reflected in the Langhof, Schwietering, and Strech (2019) study,
which identified that the Biobank research faces myriad ethical challenges. Thus, this study
emphasized that ethics research always aims at developing governance standards to meet such
ethical encounters by expounding the dominant medical ethics’ normative principles in the bio-
banking setting. Therefore, from this study, we are able to see clearly the value of ethical
consideration in research. Indeed, Langhof, Schwietering & Strech (2019) go further to identify
that many ethical standards are broadly agreed upon amongst the Biobank’s stakeholders and
encompass particular solutions for governance, for instance, adopting procedures for consent.
Thus, in terms of ethics, this study showed that to completely meet the desired goal, each
governance solution requires implementation, evaluation and where necessary, adaptation as well
as improvement in practice. Thus, the study emphasized the need to focus on practice evaluation
of biobank governance and how it ensured ethics in practice. From the findings of Langhof,
Schwietering & Strech (2019), it was clear that most biobank’s ethics and governance studies
remained theoretical and solely 25 of 192 empirically evaluated governance of biobank in
practice. However, it must be noted that this study showed that a majority of the studies
emphasized informed consent, and 6 studies tackled practice samples alongside data accessibility
evaluation and the remaining articles emphasized public involvement, ethical reporting as well as
incidental findings. Unfortunately, it was found that the studies on biobank have remained silent
on other critical and pertinent governance areas including priority setting, ethics review, as well
as ownership of samples. However, what comes clear from this article by Langhof, Schwietering
& Strech (2019) is that ethics in research and practices is an important aspect that must always
be considered.

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Similarly, Labig (2009) also addresses the consideration of ethics at great length by
looking at ethical implications of invalid besides unreliable measures for physician performance
showing clearly that bad measures never make good medicine. This emphasizes the need for
ethical consideration in both research and practice to promote quality healthcare. To do this,
Labig (2009) drew on performance appraisal alongside medical literature and comprehensively
examined ethical issues entailed in the present appraisal of individual physicians; utilization of
unreliable and invalid measures, organizational goals inconsistent with patient health goals.
Other concepts include utilizing individual measures for group performance results, making
individual attributions for systemic causes or results; and utilizing clinical feedback for
organizational intensions. Thus, this paper just like Langhof, Schwietering & Strech's (2019)
study stressed ethical practice and research by suggesting the need to develop more ethical
performance appraisals which include reflection upon the manifold purposes as well as means of
appraisals and the shortcomings of current practices. It thus argues that the greater
comprehension of the effects of the present appraisal practices on physicians will significantly
assist in minimizing its potential negative consequence on quality healthcare delivery. Thus, the
author has shown that evidence pointing towards problems with the present state of physician
performance appraisal including such ethical issues as the use of unreliable and invalid measures,
goals of organization conflicting with patients' goals, use of individual measures for what are
group performance results, making individual attributions for what are systemic results and
causes and use of clinical feedback for organizational purposes which must be changed to
enhance patient care quality.
Similarly, Thørrisen et al. (2019) have also emphasized the need for ethical practice and
research. Just as the above two studies, Thørrisen et al. (2019) shows how ethical research

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should be undertaken. Thørrisen et al. (2019) study have highlighted the need for obtaining
informed consent regarding the study aims, assurance of confidentiality, as well as making
participation voluntary. This study emphasized the need have informed consent from all
respondents just as had been shown in the Langhof, Schwietering & Strech (2019) study which
also emphasized the majority of the studies reviewed stressed the informed consent. Moreover,
Thørrisen et al. (2019) study emphasized on the need for a researcher to get approval from an
ethical committee to undertake an ethical study, in this case, Thørrisen et al. (2019) study
obtained such approval from Norwegian Center for Research Data (NSD with reference number
being 58038). Thørrisen et al. (2019) study further emphasized the need for conducting research
according to the appropriate regulations and guidelines. To emphasize ethical practice amongst
the medical staff, Thørrisen et al. (2019) study joined the two studies already discussed above in
stressing the need for physicians to act ethically as this enhances their performance. To do this,
Thørrisen et al. (2019) study indicated that alcohol consumption is linked to detrimental health
as well as work performance results, and occupational health settings might be specifically
serviceable for alcohol prevention programs that target employees. For this reason, Thørrisen et
al. (2019) study suggested the need to ensure sufficient training, time as well as resources in
OHS to release an abeyant asset for alcohol problem prevention amongst the employees, and
hence contributing towards remedying this major public health issue.
Conclusion
The three articles have focused on shared goals; ethical research and practice amongst the
researchers and medical practitioners to ensure the highest standards of quality healthcare
provision. The most shared concept discussed in the three articles is ethics in research and
practice. It is clear from the compare and contrast paper that many of the researchers are trying to

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ensure ethical practices when conducting their research by adhering to such aspects as obtaining
written informed consent, assured confidentiality and making participation and withdrawal
voluntary. While this remained apparent in the three articles, more needs to be done in terms of
ethical practice specifically when undertaking an appraisal of performances. Also, it is clear from
the discussions that some employees in the medical field have not seriously taken the need to act
ethically at workplaces while other ethical problems include organizational goals conflicting
with those of patients leading to poor healthcare provision. To this end, it is recommended that
healthcare practitioners need to be properly trained and appraised using reliable and valid
measures to ensure that they always remain ethical for the quality care provision.

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References
Labig, C. E. (2009). Bad measures don’t make good medicine: the ethical implications of
unreliable and invalid physician performance measures. Journal of business ethics, 88(2),
287-295.
Langhof, H., Schwietering, J., & Strech, D. (2019). Practice evaluation of biobank ethics and
governance: current needs and future perspectives. Journal of medical genetics, 56(3),
176-185.
Thørrisen, M. M., Skogen, J. C., Kjeken, I., Jensen, I., & Aas, R. W. (2019). Current practices
and perceived implementation barriers for working with alcohol prevention in
occupational health services: the WIRUS OHS study. Substance abuse treatment,
prevention, and policy, 14(1), 30.