The Role of Health Sciences Libraries in Supporting Consent Standards for Medical Image Publication

Objectives: The objectives of this research are to:
1.) assess health sciences library workers' current knowledge of best practices and recommendations for informed consent for the publication of medical images and
2.) determine if knowledge of these standards informs the professional practice of health sciences library workers.

Methods: The authors developed a survey to measure the familiarity of health sciences library workers with established informed consent standards for the publication of medical images. The survey will be distributed in December 2022, primarily through listservs, and current health sciences library workers in the United States will be invited to complete the survey. For those survey respondents already aware of these best practices and recommendations, the authors will ask how their professional practice is informed by this knowledge, if at all. For those respondents not aware of these best practices and recommendations, the authors will ask how they anticipate their professional practice being changed, if at all, now that they are aware. Demographic questions will also be asked. Primarily quantitative analysis will be utilized to evaluate the response data. Open-ended survey responses will require additional qualitative analysis.

Results: Results will be provided during the presentation.

Conclusions: This paper will establish a baseline from which further discussion and research can emerge regarding health sciences library workers’ roles, as resource purchasers and educators, in supporting best practices and recommendations for informed consent for the publication of medical images. With the strengthening of open science initiatives and advancement of computational analysis of large datasets, there is an increased need for resource creator accountability. History features many examples of unethical medical acts that disproportionately affected and continue to affect marginalized individuals. Awareness of how technology is radically changing the meaning of informed consent in the twenty-first century is an imperative first step towards improving professional practice and decreasing the likelihood that librarians are contributing to unethical behavior.