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Whistle-Blowing: An Option or an Obligation?

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Abstract

The preceding chapters have covered some of the ever-growing work spectrum a biomedical engineering professional can be expected to involve with. Nevertheless, this would be sufficient to describe the significant as well as the encompassing role of the profession in the biomedical and life sciences field. From this perspective, it is then essential that not only for a biomedical engineering professional to have an inherent sound ethical value system but also for the organisation which employs the former. Known misconduct cases like that of the bioscience researcher, Hwang Woo Suk (Kakuk 2009) and the physical researcher, Jan Hendrik Schon (Reich 2009) have shown to have jeopardised any organisations associated with that individual. In addition, with the advances of media technology and the accessibility as well as popularity of social media platforms, the general public is becoming more aware of such incidences at a much quicker pace. Inevitably, the way in which misconduct is policed and corrected will very much reflect the integrity of the organisation and possibly the governmental regulatory bodies as a whole. Thus, the time frame between a misconduct case occurring and the case being known to the general community is diminishing, especially for the prominent ones. Essentially, the expectation for an organisation and/or the regulatory bodies to highlight a misconduct case or even a suspected case has become more apparent and at times, can be rather pressing. In fact, organisations and/or regulatory bodies should clarify any misconduct case at the soonest interval as the details provided by any unofficial source can sometimes induce negative yet unfounded elements to the incidence.

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Correspondence to Jong Yong Abdiel Foo .

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Foo, J.Y.A. (2013). Whistle-Blowing: An Option or an Obligation?. In: Ethics for Biomedical Engineers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6913-1_6

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