Abstract
The author argues that notwithstanding available guidelines and established practices, the elaboration of a formal ethics framework specific to medical affairs could improve good practice internationally. He further argues that further and better insights into the theory behind the practice of medical affairs are an essential precondition for elaborating any such framework.
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Notes
The notion ‘competent authority’ as it is now established in regulatory language applies to an authority that has the statutory legitimacy to act. The notion of competence sought here relates to understanding how goodness inheres in the medical affairs brief and having the wherewithal to make suitable and defensible decisions over such issues as the nature of this goodness and its applicability. The first notion of competence does not necessary imply the second.
Assumed or delegated.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Dr. Pol Vandenbroucke MD MSc MBA FFPM, visiting senior lecturer at KCL for his comments and encouragements on an earlier draft of this work. He gives consent to be thanked here.
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CN is employed as Senior Lecturer in Pharmaceutical Medicine education by the Centre for Pharmaceutical Medicine Research, King’s College London. All opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of King’s College London.
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CN conceptualised the research and wrote the drafts. He presented an earlier version at the Centre for Pharmaceutical Medicine Research symposium at King’s College London on 27 Oct 2022 in London.
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Naraynassamy, C. The Central Role of Ethics in Medical Affairs Practice. Pharm Med 37, 275–279 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40290-023-00477-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40290-023-00477-9