A friend of your mother has a rare progressive and eventually fatal disease. In the course of your work, you discover a highly experimental but potentially lifesaving medication that is being tested...

A friend of your mother has a rare progressive and eventually fatal disease. In the course of your work, you discover a highly experimental but potentially lifesaving medication that is being tested as a clinical trial at the institution where you are employed. You make a few inquiries and now have serious doubts about whether your mother’s friend will be able to get into the study because the waiting list already is much longer than the experimental protocol allows. Still, you think the caring thing to do is to at least let her know that such an intervention is available. Knowing her, she will definitely want to go for it and will push you hard to try to influence your colleague to get her into the study. While you are thinking about these things, the clinician conducting the protocol calls you back to say that on the basis of your being a fellow employee, she may try to rearrange the queue to get your mother’s friend into the study. No promises. Now you find yourself wondering if it is fair to those who already are in the queue if your influence does work and your mother’s friend jumps ahead in the line. How do you go about deciding what to do in this situation that brings to your doorstep both your care for someone close to your mother with a medical need (although not a patient of yours) and your reflection about others eligible for inclusion in the study who may end up being ousted?