Lesbian Health Survey- Can you help this PhD Student?? PLEASE!!

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by Melissa

But you are not on the IRB board for this survey. The survey writer gave a link directly to her Univ, her program and her own bio with a picture. Her name and diss advisor name is on the survey. She needs this to complete her diss so she can graduate. I think that your attitude toward this creates a bad image of this site. If you have personal/professional problems with this survey you should contact the Univ and her advisor or the admin of this site and ask for the thread to be closed.

Melissa

So I am, as a potential participant/volunteer in this survey (it IS NOT a study), supposed to just not ask questions about the survey? I, as a potential participant/volunteer am just supposed to shut my pretty little mouth and not ask questions of clarification about a survey for an academic dissertation.....be someone's guinea pig so they can call themselves Doctor......that has the potential to affect my ability to access appropriate health care?

As a potential participant, I cannot and will not put aside my years of experience in this field. Trust me........nobody wants me in their clinical trials or KABB surveys. They hate me. I ask the hard questions. I demand referenced information. I demand access to all information the researchers have. It is my right, if I am to volunteer my body or my experiences about my health to some academic in some institution of higher learner.

Her credentials and bio and those of her advisors are nice to have, but have really no relevance to Informed Consent documents. The Informed Consent document she provided did not answer my questions, nor has she answered my questions. As a potential volunteer/participant this is not acceptable and I have no choice but to not participate and suggest that anyone who asks me about this not participate.

Questions are never wrong. Avoiding questions or not fully answering questions is cause for stepping back and reconsidering.

A survey of 250 'lesbians' (without a definition) that the researcher proposes might affect the quality and kinds of health care I receive definitely requires close scrutiny. 250 self defined lesbians hardly provides any statistical significance in future health care for lesbians. It might however justify her dissertation conclusions in the minds of her advisory board. 250 lesbians answers to a poorly prepared questions and IFC documents should never affect my health care. The grade her advisors give her for this is entirely on them.

By asking me to take off the IRB hat is like asking me to cut off my head. IRB is about ethics. Ethics are who I am personally in the world. The totality of my experience drives my questions.