• Question: Could their be negative affects to your work and how could you counter them.

    Asked by Amar Doherty to Andrew, Lizzie, Nick, Sonia on 13 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by 873artc37.
    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 13 Jun 2015:

      Yes it does, on a few occassions when the implant does not work at switch on. Hwere it is physcologically very upsetting for the patient who has undergone a major operation for potentially no benefit. In most cases the problems can be rectified which comes as a relief, but can be quiet anxious for all concerned because it can be a couple of months before we know if its worked.

      In NF2 surgeries (removal of acoustic nerve tumours) i will need to setup first thing – around 8:30am, and may not be needed until near the end of the operation which can be around 12:00 midnight. Trying to determine if the surgeon has placed the electrode in the right position can be very difficult. Any error in positioning would render the £16000 implant useless.

      To over come this I need to be very familar with the equipment and techniques and practice on surgial cases when the result is not important if I mess up. And use these opportunities to perfect these meausmrent techniques.

    • Photo: Andrew Phillips

      Andrew Phillips answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      The work we do in the Centre for Blast Injury Studies could have negative affects if it was used to allow people to make “better” explosive devices, that would cause injuries to military personnel and civilians. In the Centre we are clear that the work should be directed to prevent, mitigate or treat injuries, and not to help design weapons. We have to carefully consider the ethics of any work that we do. This can mean that when we publish the work we have to be careful not to detail certain aspects of the experiments and numerical analyses that we do. We are also very careful about who we work with.

    • Photo: Elizabeth Kapasa

      Elizabeth Kapasa answered on 14 Jun 2015:

      That’s a really interesting and important question. That’s the exact question we have to answer to safety authorities when trying to get approved to do preclinical and clinical trials before a treatment can be used. We always try to eliminate the risks as much as possible and the benefits always have to outweigh the risks. A big problem with new technologies are the unknown long term side effects.
      Another big issue is around the ethics of what we’re doing. Just because you can do something, does not automatically mean that you should.

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