(May 17 2001) ...from John Last on Guidelines, Policiies and Protocols...
Phil, you might gently hint to your listserve colleagues that it is always
helpful to consult a dictionary - not a technical one, but an ordinary one.
I've just looked at a selection of mine. Surprisingly (well, no not all that
surprising, because it seems to be the usual pattern) the complete OED on
CD-ROM (2000 edition) doesn't have a separate entry for guideline, just
folds it into the rather lengthy entry on 'guide'. And equally
unsurprising, it doesn't help much with the definition of guideline. My old
Shorter OED is more helpful, but the Canadian Oxford Dictionary is best on
all three words - guideline, policy, and protocol (by the way, none give
'standard' as a synonym for 'policy'). Webster's 3rd accords with the OED
definitions, and all are in agreement.(more or less) with the dictionary of
epidemiology.
I'd share these remarks with your listserve, but its moderator won't let me
unless I go through the proper protocol to belong - and I have enough
troubles already without joining yet another listserve. When your message
arrived, I thought it was from the listserve of the National Council on
Ethics in Human Research, where a recent series of exchanges dealt with
somewhat similar problems of definition and words like 'guildelines' and
'policies' have been much bandied about. In fact, the distinction between
'code', 'guideline', 'policy' (but not, I think, 'protocol') has lately
exercised the minds and fingers of several NCEHR listserve devotees, not
including this two-finger typist. As you probably know, the Tricouncil Code
of Ethical Conduct... had to become the Tricouncil Policy Statement..
because of objections to the use (in English anyway) of the word 'code'
which means something more inflexible than 'guidelines' which in turn are
less flxible than a policy statement. Despite this, many amateur ethicists
continue to get their knickers in all sorts of twists because they interpret
the 'policy statements' as rigid rules that must be adhered to no matter
what.
Hope these thoughts muddy the waters a bit more..
a bientot,
John
John M Last MD
Professor emeritus of epidemiology
University of Ottawa
451 Smyth Road, Ottawa, CANADA K1H 8M5
Tel: (613) 562 5410
Fax:(613) 562 5465
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