Real cases, documented in newspaper and other articles, were an important source of course materials.
We believe that real cases bring a depth and reality to the discussions. We thus began our course with the
discussion of a real and very complex case, the Imanishi-Kari/Baltimore case. In addition, we used a
combination of case scenarios and literature to focus on issues that could less easily be deciphered from
the real life situations. The play A Stampede of Zebras by R. G. Martin, for example, was very
important in helping us present the topic of interpersonal interaction in the laboratory.
As cases highlight what has gone wrong, we were concerned that the use of case material might leave
students with a negative view of the field they are entering. But, in our experience, students appreciated
the use of case material, particularly when cases were well chosen so that the situations were familiar and
believable. Rather than making students uncomfortable with their chosen field, the use of cases reassured
them that they were not alone with, and unusual in, concerns that they themselves had recognized or
confronted.
To reinforce the case analysis method, we included one session for student presentations. During this
session students presented and analyzed cases of interest to them. We believe that student presentations
are a central component to an ethics course. Although we had the students do these analyses through
verbal presentations, we would have preferred to also include written presentations. In fact, we feel that
written assignments on a weekly basis would be optimal. Such a course structure would require,
however, that a course in research ethics have more institutional support than we were able to muster.
Since, as we describe in Section 6, recruitment of students was a problem for us, we intentionally kept
the course requirements to a minimum.