There’s great storytelling tension when a podcast can transport the listener into an ethical dilemma where there are good arguments for both sides of a tricky situation. It’s especially impressive in a branded company podcast, like this one from the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics:

playing god?

The show is produced by Pushkin Industries, which mostly makes general interest shows like Revisionist History but has also taken on some interesting branded projects. Each episode tackles a nuanced, thorny area of medical ethics, like how to decide whether to keep a patient on a ventilator when they can’t affirmatively make that decision themselves, and how exactly do we define when someone has died. It’s fascinating stuff, and really highlights how there are so many tough questions being pondered and made practical in the world of bioethics. The show immediately made it into my regular rotation.