Is your study team participating in a multi-site study in which each site will undergo separate IRB review? If so, take advantage of the option to submit a “local protocol addendum” to add detail about the main protocol the main site sends you. The IRB knows that asking for a correction or an addition to […]

Ever wondered how to make a grown IRB office staffer cry? Easy – send them a protocol submission that almost but not quite meets the criteria for expedited review. An example – protocols that involve multiple teeny tiny blood draws done over a short period of time. Expedited category 2a allows a reasonable amount of blood to […]

ORC, which has worked wonders over the past 18 months to keep the education offerings coming during a pandemic, is asking for feedback about the Certified Research Specialist (CRS) and Advanced Certified Research Specialist (ACRS) programs! Please click this link to take a short (10-minutes-max or so) anonymous survey about these two educational programs. ORC […]

Although  it wasn’t easy – some behind-the-scenes server switching caused the IRB’s web page to go a little kablooie – we finally were able to get some updated IRB policies posted. All of the current policies can be found on the IRB’s webpage. Retired policies are archived on the policy archive webpage. The most notable […]

A recent blog entry on the Public Responsibility In Medicine & Research (PRIM&R) is a good reminder of some of the considerations associated with obtaining consent for research remotely. eConsent is becoming more common, both because of the growth of telemedicine in general, and also because of its ability to make research available across a […]

A recent Philadelphia Inquirer article indicates the dean of Penn Medicine has apologized for the work of a longtime faculty member (now deceased) for conducting medical research on inmates at a Philadelphia prison. The research led by dermatologist Dr. Albert Kligman was done at Philadelphia’s Holmesburg Prison, where most of the inmates were Black. The […]

We’ve been noticing, as we review studies that qualify for exempt status review, that sometimes it seems like the consent process is the longest and most daunting-to-subjects part of participation. We realized that we didn’t have any consent material templates geared for exempt status research readily available. At least that’s a problem we can solve […]

The use of a placebo in a study assessing whether vitamin D supplements reduced the number of asthma attacks in kids with asthma raised some eyebrows in research ethics circles, according to a recent online publication in Science. Per the article, children with asthma and known to have low vitamin D levels were to receive either […]

Simplifying the language in our HIPAA research authorization template has been on the IRB’s to-do list for, oh, about 15 or so years now. We’re happy to report that, thanks to both a nudge from and the assistance of the UAMS Center for Health Literacy, we have a brand new, much more reader-friendly HIPAA authorization […]

UAMS has updated its Human Research Protection Program (HRPP) Plan, and the revised version is now posted on the IRB’s website. The HRPP plan describes the various institutional components that play a role in the ethical conduct of human subject research at UAMS. The most notable change to this iteration of the plan is the […]