Meyerson Denise
*DPhil, Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University, North Ryde, New South Wales, 2109, Australia.
J Med Philos. 2013 Dec;38(6):605-24. doi: 10.1093/jmp/jht047. Epub 2013 Oct 24.
Surgical innovation involves practices, such as new devices, technologies, procedures, or applications, which are novel and untested. Although innovative practices are believed to offer an improvement on the standard surgical approach, they may prove to be inefficacious or even dangerous. This article considers how surgeons considering innovation should reason in the conditions of uncertainty that characterize innovative surgery. What attitude to the unknown risks of innovative surgery should they take? The answer to this question involves value judgments about the acceptability of risk taking when satisfactory scientific information is not available. This question has been confronted in legal contexts, where risk aversion in the form of the precautionary principle has become increasingly influential as a regulatory response to innovative technologies that pose uncertain future hazards. This article considers whether it is appropriate to apply a precautionary approach when making decisions about innovative surgery.
手术创新涉及新设备、新技术、新手术方法或新应用等实践，这些都是新颖且未经测试的。尽管创新实践被认为会改进标准手术方法，但它们可能被证明是无效的甚至是危险的。本文探讨了考虑进行创新的外科医生在创新手术所特有的不确定性情况下应如何进行推理。他们应该对创新手术的未知风险持何种态度？这个问题的答案涉及在缺乏充分科学信息时对冒险可接受性的价值判断。在法律背景下也面临过这个问题，作为对带来不确定未来危害的创新技术的监管回应，以预防原则形式存在的风险规避已变得越来越有影响力。本文探讨了在对创新手术做出决策时应用预防方法是否合适。
