You can safely participate in medical trials to advance healthcare

You can safely participate in medical trials to advance healthcare (Photo: iStock)

The practice of medicine is mostly driven by research. Nearly every medical remedy you know of started as a hypothesis, which was eventually supported by research. There tends to be a long road spanning from animal-based research, eventually feeding into humans. Real-life medical experiments are almost inevitable, requiring a select group of patients to avail themselves of medical research.

In your day-to-day medical encounters, you may be requested to participate in some clinical experiments. Some people will feel compelled to decline, possibly thinking about the risks involved. However there are many safety processes in place to protect you as a participant.

First, any proposed medical research must go through rigorous vetting via regulatory bodies referred to as Ethics and Research Committees (ERCs). Medical research only gets approved if certain criteria are met, which must include safety, in addition to what the researchers have hypothesized as eventual benefits. You will go through a vetting process to confirm your eligibility to participate in the proposed research. You could be eligible because you are suffering from the disease of interest.

Or you may be selected to represent a comparison group that is usually unaffected by the condition being studied. Once recruited, you must be given adequate information to be able to decide whether you want to participate.

Your consent to participate must be given without coercion, and you can withdraw from the research at any time if you feel impelled to do so. Studies have shown that patients who agree to participate in medical research are not any worse off than those who don’t.

Some data suggests that those who participate in research may accrue clinical benefits. There is a potential for harm as well, even though approval processes go to great lengths to limit risk to research participants. If unexpected harm occurs, you would usually be compensated in some way. But don’t get yourself recruited for some medical study for the sake of financial gain. Reasonable expenses may be reimbursed, but most research projects will not pay you a fee just for participating.

Always be ready to volunteer for medical research, either as a study subject or in some other capacity. Playing an active role puts you at the forefront of helping to advance medical care. You may not accrue any benefits from your participation.

But again, some patients with rare conditions have benefited directly when ongoing research turns out to be a cure for their conditions. You can also expect to come to no harm in most cases. The dark days when human subjects were intentionally put into harm’s way for the sake of medical research are long gone.    

Dr Alfred Murage is a Consultant Gynecologist and Fertility Specialist.