[Friday's Globe and Mail] Unlike doctors, scientists don’t have an ancient moral code like the Hippocratic oath. But graduate students beginning their careers in medical research at the University of Toronto now have their own solemn ceremony in which they pledge to conduct themselves in an ethical fashion.

Karen Davis, graduate co-ordinator at the Institute of Medical Science, says the new vow stems, in part, from the growing recognition of the potential for academic misconduct, which includes fraud, plagiarism and the shaping of experiments and research papers in ways that help pharmaceutical companies sell more drugs.

“I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship,” reads the oath, which was recited for the first time last September by graduate students at the Institute of Medical Science. “I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member.”  To continue reading click here.