Bioethics, as an applied form of ethics, is concerned with clinical problems and decision-making. This makes sense because healthcare takes action to resolve challenges in preventing and treating illness. But by focusing on dilemmas and moral distress, we sometimes lose sight of patients––and their stories––and fail to see the moral richness that permeates illness, dying and death, and by association, the moral richness of life. This does a disservice to morality, as it’s often these small epiphanies that make healthcare––and ethics––so meaningful.

Presenter: Prof Ian Kerridge, Haematologist/Bone Marrow Transplant physician, Royal Northshore Hospital, Professor of Bioethics and Medicine, University of Sydney. Host: Prof John Massie, Children's Bioethics Centre, The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne.