Academic Integrity, Moral Courage, and Whistleblowing in Student Research

Academic integrity, moral courage, and whistleblowing are interrelated concepts in higher education. This chapter explores these concepts and inter-relationships in the context of medical student research. Producing robust research requires an ethical values foundation, stimulated and enhanced by training and mentoring. Unique to higher education is the relationship between academic integrity and research integrity due to the fact that research outputs such as abstracts, manuscripts, and theses are often curricular requirements with formal summative assessment. Accordingly, research integrity issues such as fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, deception, and conflict of interest automatically become academic integrity issues for medical school teachers and administrators to adjudicate. Medical students who witness research misconduct can feel morally distressed about the observations and their duty to report the behavior during their already stressed academic pursuit of graduation and medical practice. Accordingly, this chapter discusses student struggles with moral courage, courage building, and students as whistleblowers, providing guidance to trainees and the higher education system. Overall, a system which trains, models ethical behavior, and supports and protects students is a system which builds moral courage and promotes academic and research integrity. A net benefit for medical students and newly graduated physicians is the ability to use their moral courage skills when faced with clinical dilemmas. Student researchers in other fields also benefit as they, too, are better prepared for future professional practice.