Response
Editor – We thank Steve Thornton for his letter.
We appreciate the aim of the UKMED project, and the need for an evidence-based approach to medical education. However, this should not be at the expense of informed consent.
If the UKMED Advisory Board are committed to transparency, we suggest the organisations that contribute to the UKMED database ask explicit permission from students and doctors before sharing their data with UKMED. This should include checking candidates agree with the linking of data between different organisations. For instance, organisation A must ask students if they agree for their data to be shared outside of organisation A and incorporated into the UKMED database.
As the UKMED database currently contains data from students and doctors who are unaware of its existence, we suggest all students and doctors whose data are in the database are contacted with information about the project and given the option to have their data removed. Indeed, the qui tacet consentire videtur approach of UKMED towards the subjects' data that they currently hold needs to be revisited.
- © Royal College of Physicians 2017. All rights reserved.
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