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Medical Record Confidentiality and Data Collection: Current Dilemmas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Beverly Woodward
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Extract

All scientific activity involves some method of observation and some method of recording what is observed. These activities can be carried out in ways that involve little interaction between subject and object, as is the case when a telescope observes a far-away star. At the other end of the scale are experiments in modern high energy physics in which there is little distinction between the observer and the observed, and the process of observation materially affects the data that are recorded. In this regard, research on human phenomena resembles modern physics more than it does classical astronomy.

Research on human phenomena, however, differs from modern physics in the way in which it affects that which is observed. Both the procedures and the findings of research on human phenomena alter the modes of thinking and the self-awareness of the (human) objects of study.

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Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 25 , Issue 2-3 , Summer Fall 1997 , pp. 88 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1997

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References

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