Lazycoder

Questions with no right answers.

Business Conduct Training Complaints

Larry wonders why the HR videos always use questions with easy answers. Contrast that with some of the questions I was asked when I interviewed for admittance into the University of Kansas School of Medicine.

“You are treating an elderly man, before you can obtain any type of consent he falls into a coma and has to be put on a ventilator. He has 6 surviving children, three of whom think dad would have wanted to be put on the breathing machine and tell you to put him on the ventialtor. The remaining three think that’s the last thing their dad would have wanted and won’t allow him to be put on one. What do you do?”

“A family of 3 is in an automoble accident and the youngest daughter is in critical condition and needs a blood transfusion. Right before the mother passes out she tells you that their religious beliefs forbid any kind of bodily fluid transfer under any circumstances. She passes out before you are able to explain the situation with her daughter to her. You know the daughter will most likely die without the transfusion. What do you do?”

These type of questions are a far cry from the “Is it appropriate for you to grasp your female coworkers buttocks” ( answer: only after she’s had a couple of drinks, or if you’ve had a couple and she’s ugly.) type of questions asked by HR.

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where I work, has revamped it’s research ethics training. It does manage to ask some tough questions. Questions that point out the grey areas and force the researchers to develop some critical thinking.
“A principal investigator is reviewing a manuscript for a student in another lab and realizes the data in the paper shows that a project a postdoc is working on in the investigators lab will never pan out. What is the PI’s responsibility.”