research ethics

so... it's great that this week's assignment is to think about informed consent and research ethics, because it has only recently come to my attention that I would have to submit a proposal to our school's IRB before I could even begin to ask transgender folks (and perhaps use information provided on blogs, journals, etc) about friendly health-care providers and what criteria should be used to sort through trans-sensitive/friendly providers. Our school's IRB website states "Before human subjects are recruited or data is collected from human subjects, the IRB must review and approve all human subject research, regardless of funding, conducted by Appalachian State University faculty, staff or students." Until approved, I couldn't even begin the preliminary research to design the selection criteria for the providers. Then, because participation of healthcare providers might entail at least some legal risk, I would have to make sure all of the consent forms and securities were in place so that I could put participant's information on the resource website. I called our IRB, and my study seems to fall in uncertain territory...so now I am waiting to find out whether or not I need to have my application approved at all. If I have to be approved, the process can take 2-3 weeks. I've submitted the request for review, and am waiting to hear back from the IRB. fun!