Ethics Opinions

Physicians have an ethical responsibility to learn from and contribute to the total store of scientific knowledge. When they engage in biomedical or health research, physicians have obligations as scientists, which include disseminating research findings.

Physicians who develop medical innovations may ethically patent their discoveries or products but should not allow patents to languish or use patents to limit the availability of medical innovations.

Physicians who care for patients with serious, life-threatening illness for whom standard therapies have failed, are unlikely to be effective, or do not exist, should familiarize themselves with access to investigational therapies through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “expanded access” program to be better able to engage in shared decision making with patients.