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Our first experience of an ethics committee: entering the Dragon's Den.

A recent editorial in the BMJ proposes that undergraduate researchers face significant barriers in the form of ethics and NHS research governance approval procedures which are bureaucratic, excessive, and de-motivating.1 As medical students who had to negotiate the system for our Primary Healthcare intercalated BSc2 this academic year, we could not agree more. In addition to the unnecessary red-tape involved, our very first experiences of the procedure were frankly distressing and demoralising. Our account should serve as a timely reminder of why fledgling researchers may be put off in pursuing their interests in fields which are already starting to suffer.

We were called to our ethics meeting on a particularly cold February evening; perhaps the weather should have forecast the bitter encounter …