In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Kaitlin Puccio, JD, MS about how discussion of current emotionally-charged social issues can benefit from logical reasoning and respectful dialogue with opposing viewpoints. The use of art as a way to make bioethical issues accessible to the public and foster civil discourse is also discussed.

Kaitlin Puccio, JD, MS is Director, Art and Bioethics Initiative at the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights & Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law. https://kaitlinpuccio.com/

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Gabrielle Finn on differential attainment, which refers to the variation in academic attainment between groups of students who share protected characteristics (such as religion, ethnicity and ability) and those who do not share the same characteristic.

Report discussed:
Gabrielle Finn, Jenny Twyford, Adam Danquah, Asieh Shomali. The Game of Academic Privilege: An Exploration of Differential Attainment at the University of Manchester. 2025. https://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=76069

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Kyle Tafuri, a healthcare sustainability expert, about the importance of aligning environmental sustainability with the mission of healthcare systems. Tafuri emphasizes that clean air, water, and healthy soil are fundamental to health and that healthcare institutions, as major employers and resource users, have both an ethical obligation and strategic opportunity to lead in sustainability.

Kyle Tafuri is Vice President of Sustainability, Hackensack Meridian Health.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Lawrence Rosen about how advocacy extends beyond individual patient care to include public health, policy reform, and environmental sustainability. Rosen argues that physicians have an ethical obligation to use their trusted position to defend and promote health at all levels.

Lawrence Rosen, MD is an Integrative Pediatrician and Founder of The Whole Child Center & Associate Professor at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Arthur Caplan about on the evolution of bioethics from an academic niche to a more public-facing discipline that now must address misinformation and political polarization.

Dr. Arthur Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Department of Population Health.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Lori Bruce on the ethical concerns surrounding baby boxes—devices used for the anonymous surrender of infants under Safe Haven laws. While good intentioned, Bruce argues these boxes lack regulation, informed consent, and support for vulnerable mothers. Evidence-based alternatives like confidential births and crisis counseling to better support families are discussed.

Dr. Lori Bruce is Associate Director, Center for Bioethics, at the Yale School of Medicine.

Episode Resources:
Summer bioethics program:
https://bioethics.yale.edu/summer

Article about supported/confidential birth:
https://bioethicstoday.org/blog/the-us-needs-confidential-birth/

Open letter to HHS about box regulations:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XDZMxjLSZPDUdOKT1yWHAf_e8vxW1QayxSgX3auANGE/

Token: Handmade paper and textile heart [Foundling Museum]
https://foundlingmuseum.org.uk/object/token-handmade-paper-and-textile-heart/

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Dr. Jeffrey Boscamp about the decline in public trust in science, particularly around vaccines, and notes that this erosion affects not only individual health decisions but also community well-being.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Nanette Elster, JD, MPH and Kayhan Parsi, JD, PhD about the need for both legal and societal frameworks to ensure the rights and well-being of neurodivergent individuals.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington talks to Dr. James O’Brien about his co-authored article in American Journal of Perinatology.

O'Brien JA, Lewkowitz AK, Main EK, Adashi EY. The Ongoing U.S. Struggle with Maternal Mortality. Am J Perinatol. Published online October 10, 2024. doi:10.1055/a-2404-8035

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington talks to Dr. Robert Klitzman  about his book, Doctor, Will You Pray for Me?: Medicine, Chaplains, and Healing the Whole Person. 

Robert Klitzman, MD, is a Professor of Psychiatry in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Joseph Mailman School of Public Health, and the Director of the Masters of Bioethics Program at Columbia University. He has authored or co-authored over 180 scientific articles, and nine books, including When Doctors Become Parents, and has received several awards, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and has been a member of the Empire State Stem Cell Commission, and the Research Ethics Advisory Panel of the U.S. Department of Defense.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington talks to Dr. Paul Snelling, Principal Lecturer in Adult Nursing at University of Worcester, about his 2024 Nursing Ethics article, “Am I my students’ nurse? Reflections on the nursing ethics of nursing education,” which explores the student–nurse academic relationship vis-à-vis the patient–nurse relationship.

Snelling P. Am I my students’ nurse? Reflections on the nursing ethics of nursing education. Nursing Ethics. 2024;31(1):52-64. doi:10.1177/09697330231193858

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington talks to Dr. Thomas Nasca, ACGME President and Chief Executive Officer, about the crucial role of trust in medicine, emphasizing its importance in medical education, the physician-patient relationship, and addressing systemic issues in healthcare, such as burnout and moral distress. Without trust, the healthcare system risks failing both its providers and patients.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington talks to Dr. Keisha Ray about her 2024 co-authored American Journal of Bioethics article, “The Bioethics of Environmental Injustice: Ethical, Legal, and Clinical Implications of Unhealthy Environments” and her book, Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People’s Health.

Keisha Ray is an Associate Professor of bioethics and medical humanities at McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas. Her research focuses on the socio-political determinants of Black people's health and exposing structural racism's effects on Black people's health and wellbeing.

In this episdoe, Bryan Pilkington, PhD speaks to Carl Elliott, MD, PhD, professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. His latest book, The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No, is out now (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024). The Occassional Human Sacrifice details shocking cases of abusive medical research and the whistleblowers who spoke out against them, sometimes at the expense of their careers.

Carl Elliott's website: https://www.carl-elliott.com/

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks with Charles E. Binkley, MD.

Charles Binkley is a liver and pancreas surgeon, bioethicist, Director of Bioethics at Hackensack Meridian Health, and Associate Professor of Surgery at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. His work focuses on the ethical use of AI to improve clinical decision making.

He is the co-author of Encoding Bioethics: AI in Clinical Decision-Making (University of California Press, 2024) with Tyler Loftus. 

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Samuel Doernberg and Dr. Robert Truog about their recent paper in the American Journal of Bioethics entitled, "Spheres of Morality: The Ethical Codes of the Medical Profession." 

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. David J. Skorton about academic freedom.

David J. Skorton, MD, is president and CEO of the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges), a not-for-profit association that represents medical schools, teaching hospitals and health systems, and academic societies.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Jason Adam Wasserman about Institutional Conscience. His new article is:
Wasserman JA, Brummett AL, Navin MC, Menkes DL. Conscientious Objection to Aggressive Interventions for Patients in a Vegetative State. Am J Bioeth. Published online November 30, 2023. doi:10.1080/15265161.2023.2280099. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38032547/

Dr. Wasserman is Professor of Foundational Medical Studies at Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, where he also holds an appointment in Pediatrics, is the course director for the Medical Humanities and Clinical Bioethics curriculum, serves as the Founding Director of the Center for Moral Values in Health and Medicine, the Director of the Holocaust and Medicine program, and as a clinical ethics consultant at Corewell Health William Beaumont University Hospital.
 His first book, At Home on the Street (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2010) addressed the issue of homelessness, while his current scholarly work focuses on clinical bioethics and medicine and the Holocaust.  The second edition of his book Social and Behavioral Science for Health Professionals (with Brian Hinote) was published in 2020 by Rowman and Littlefield.  He has authored numerous articles in journals such as Social Science and Medicine, Qualitative Health Research, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, American Journal of Bioethics, Hastings Center Report, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Pediatrics, JAMA-Pediatrics, and The New England Journal of Medicine.

If we demand informed consent for individuals, why don't we demand it for all of society? In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Brian Patrick Green about technology and societal informed consent. 

Brian Patrick Green is the director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University and teaches AI ethics in Santa Clara University’s Graduate School of Engineering. His work focuses on AI and ethics, technology ethics in corporations, the ethics of space exploration and use, the ethics of technological manipulation of humans, the ethics of mitigation of and adaptation towards risky emerging technologies, and various aspects of the impact of technology and engineering on human life and society, including the relationship of technology and religion (particularly the Catholic Church). Green is the author of the book Space Ethics and co-author of Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Pilkington speaks to Dr. Jamie Carlin Watson, clinical ethicist for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Bioethics. Watson is the author of several books, including: A History and Philosophy of Expertise: The Nature and Limits of Authority (Bloomsbury, 2022), Expertise: A Philosophical Introduction (Bloomsbury 2020), and Moral Expertise: New Essays from Theoretical and Clinical Bioethics, edited with Laura K. Guidry-Grimes (Springer, 2018). https://jamiecarlinwatson.weebly.com/