Clinical uncertainty and the consequent ethical responsibilities for today's doctors

Clinical uncertainty continues to matter today, causing harm and waste in healthcare. Managing and resolving this through the empirical findings of research are the foundations of modern medicine's successes. Doctors therefore have an ethical duty to help contribute to the identification and resolution of clinical uncertainty through facilitating and contributing to research, a point clearly put in sharp perspective by the recent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Ethical codes support this, but endorsement is far from emphatic given its clinical importance and future revisions should urgently address this omission.