Ethics for life sciences engineers

We have seen that, while the four principles approach to bioethics can help to provide useful insights, the principles need to be specified, balanced and justified in each situation.  This can be time consuming and unpredictable.  For this reason, both institutions and professions have worked to specify how these principles translate into the ethical behaviour they expect of their members.  In institutions this can mean a code of practice or an institutional ethical charter.  EPFL has an aspirational Oath taken by students on graduation, and an enforced directive on Research Integrity (Lex 3.3.2) which identifies the institution’s expectations of students and staff.  Institutional like the Lex rules often have enforceable sanctions.   At a wider level, professional societies also have codes such as the Biomedical Engineering Society Code of Conduct & Policies.

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