playing god? A bioethics podcast

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New Episode, “A Shot at Weight Loss, Should I Take It?”, Now Streaming

Life-and-death decisions. Difficult tradeoffs. playing god? explores ethical dilemmas in health and medicine through the first-person stories of people who have lived them.

Recognized with three 2024 Signal Awards.

Brought to you by the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. New episodes every Tuesday through June 23.

Listen to the new season’s episodes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

About playing god?

Life-and-death dilemmas. New medical technologies. Controversial treatments. In playing god? we hear from the patients whose lives were transformed—and sometimes saved—by medical innovations and the bioethicists who help guide complex decisions.

Ventilators can keep critically ill people alive, but when is it acceptable to turn the machines off? Organ transplants save lives but when demand outpaces supply how do we decide who gets them? Increasingly, novel reproductive technologies can help people have babies in ways that are far beyond what nature allows. So, when should such “Brave New World” technologies be introduced and who should control them?

playing god?  is a podcast created by the Berman Institute of Bioethics. hosted by Lauren Arora Hutchinson, Director of the Berman’s Institute’s Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab; executive producers are Anna Mastroianni and Jeffrey Kahn.

Episodes of Season One of playing god? were made possible by generous support from The Greenwall Foundation. Season Two debuted May 19, 2026, with new episodes each Tuesday through June 23.