Ethics of Ancillary Care in Research

This course begins with an introductory segment providing an overview of ancillary care in research settings, its relevance to researchers and the main ethical questions associated with the provision of ancillary care. Segment two provides an overview of the moral reasons for ancillary care obligations including; general versus special duties as potential grounds for ancillary care obligations, duties of justice, duty of rescue and researcher-participant relationship. The third segment covers theories regarding the content of ancillary care obligations and how they could inform guidelines for determining specifically what kinds of ancillary care ought to be provided or facilitated in a given study. The fourth segment provides a brief overview of the aims of empirical studies on ancillary care provision and the fifth (and final) segment provides an overview of important gaps in our understanding of ancillary care obligations.

Objectives:

Upon completion of this course, you will have an understanding of:

1. What ancillary care is and what are the main ethical questions associated with providing or facilitating it
2. The difference between general and special duties as possible reasons why researchers have ancillary care obligations
3. The various philosophical approaches to establishing whether or not researchers have ancillary care obligations
4. The main theories that could inform guidelines for determining specifically what kinds of ancillary care ought to be provided or facilitated in a given study 
5. Important conceptual and empirical gaps in the current understanding of ancillary care obligations