The Double-Edged Sword of Surgical Innovation (Benefits & Disadvantages)
- Surgical Innovation as a practice can generate very desirable results and likewise lead to unintentional outcomes. Surgery would be nowhere without innovation: pushing beyond the theoretical framework of what has been established into modification and experimentation remains a necessary element for progress in any field.
Nonetheless, surgical research can become cavalier and harmful to those it means to help when investigators fail to consider the ramifications of their work. This is particularly true for surgical innovation because its definition, scope, and restrictions have not been determined.
Ethical Issues at Stake in Surgical Innovation Are:
- Patients' autonomy (compromised if the experimental nature of a procedure is not disclosed)
- Non-maleficence (patients are at risk of being harmed if procedure applied is not yet tried and true and/or if risks are unknown and/or expected to be significant)
- Justice (without a formal protocol or IRB review, patient enrollment/assignment to innovative procedure may not be distributed justly
- Deception (patients may, intentionally or not, be misled to think a procedure is established when in fact it is innovative)
- Therapeutic Misconception (patients may falsely believe the experimental procedure is therapeutic when in fact it is still under investigation)
- Scientific validity (at risk if procedure is not evaluated properly or without a formal protocol)