Johns Hopkins UniversityEst. 1876

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Research Area: Public Bioethics

“A World Without Nurses” Imagines a Dystopian Future without These Vital Healthcare Providers

What would happen if nurses disappeared?

That is the provocative question at the heart of A World Without Nurses, a new immersive audio documentary from the R3: Resilient Nurses Initiative of Maryland at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. The documentary was released to the public on July 8, 2026, as part of the Lab’s “playing god? presents” audio documentary series.

Through cinematic sound design, personal storytelling, and thought-provoking narration, A World Without Nurses transports listeners into a dystopian future where nurses no longer exist—not to predict what lies ahead, but to illuminate the indispensable role nurses play every day in hospitals, clinics, schools, homes, and communities. The documentary is written and produced by former Radiolab producer Simon Adler.

Visit the documentary’s dedicated website to access a Facilitated Discussion Guide, transcript, and more.

Developed through a collaboration between the R3: Resilient Nurses Initiative of Maryland and the iDeas Lab, the project is designed to spark conversations among healthcare professionals, policymakers, educators, students, and the public about the future of nursing and the investments needed to sustain the profession.

“Nursing is one of society’s most trusted and valuable resources, yet the work nurses do is often invisible until it’s no longer there,” said Cynda Hylton Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN, director of the R3: Resilient Nurses Initiative of Maryland and professor of clinical ethics and nursing at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and Berman Institute of Bioethics. “Our hope is that A World Without Nurses helps people see nursing in an entirely new light, recognizing not only the extraordinary contributions nurses make every day, but also the urgent need to support them as healthcare becomes increasingly complex.  We hope listeners leave inspired to rehumanize healthcare for everyone touched by it, to raise their voices in support of meaningful solutions to the challenges facing nurses, and to help build a future in which every person has access to the expert, compassionate care that nurses provide”.

The documentary features the voices of nurses from across Maryland whose stories reveal the expertise, resilience, compassion, and leadership that define modern nursing.

To help extend the conversation beyond individual listeners, the project includes a free Listening Session Facilitation Guide that can be downloaded from the documentary’s website. Designed for healthcare organizations, nursing schools, community groups, employers, policymakers, and the general public, the guide offers discussion prompts and activities that encourage participants to:

  • Reflect on the essential role nurses play in healthcare and in their own communities.
  • Explore what is at stake when nursing’s contributions are unrecognized or undervalued
  • Identify practical actions that individuals and organizations can take to strengthen and support the nursing workforce.
  • Continue the conversation within their own workplaces and communities to rehumanize healthcare for everyone.

“Stories have a unique ability to help people understand issues that statistics alone cannot,” said Lauren Arora Hutchinson, PhD, MPH, director of the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab. “The iDeas Lab exists to bring important conversations about medicine, science, and public health to audiences beyond academia. A World Without Nurses invites listeners to experience the world through nurses’ perspectives, creating an emotional connection that we hope inspires reflection and action.”

A World Without Nurses is the newest production in “playing god? presents,’ a series of original audio documentaries produced by the iDeas Lab exploring the ethical, social, and human dimensions of healthcare and biomedical innovation.

The project is supported by the Nurse Support Program II grant administered by the Maryland Higher Education Commission and funded through the Health Services Cost Review Commission.

iDeas Lab’s Award-Winning “playing god?” Podcast Returns for Season Two

The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics’ award-winning podcast, playing god?, has returned with a six-episode second season that debuted May 19 and released new episodes each Tuesday through June 23. Produced by the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab at the Berman Institute, playing god? combines compelling first-person storytelling with expert analysis to explore ethics dilemmas that arise in medicine, science, law, and health policy.

Listen to Season Two’s new episodes.

Season One of playing god? earned acclaim for unpacking the complex ethics questions that accompany medical innovations. Season Two expands its scope, making complex dilemmas accessible to broad audiences while grounding each story in deeply human experiences. The premiere episode, on medical aid in dying, explores the perspectives of patients, families, clinicians, and ethicists as they confront difficult questions about autonomy, professional responsibility, public policy, and the meaning of compassion at the end of life. Subsequent episodes explore topics including appropriate limits for risks to astronaut health during exploration space missions, the ethical challenges of using novel reproductive technologies for the first time in humans, the exclusion of pregnant women from drug safety research, and more.

“playing god? was created to bring bioethics to a wider public and help people think about  the ethics questions that emerge in medicine, science, and health care,” said Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH, Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director of the Berman Institute and an executive producer of the podcast. “This new season continues that effort by exploring deeply personal, difficult, and complex issues through stories that are accessible and engaging, while raising challenging ethical issues.”

To mark the launch of the new season, the Berman Institute held a public event on Thursday, May 21, at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Center for Brooklyn History. The event, titled “Life, Death, and Bioethics,” blended narrative audio, expert framing, and open conversation to create an interactive opportunity for debate and shared inquiry. Audience members were invited to wrestle with the kind of real-world dilemmas involving medicine, science, law, policy, and ethics that are explored in playing god?

All episodes of playing god? are available on all major podcast platforms. Season One has garnered nearly a quarter-million downloads and received Signal Awards for Best Science Show and Best Science Individual Episode. Each episode is accompanied by online background materials that offer listeners the opportunity to engage more deeply with the show’s content.

The podcast is a signature project of the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab, a Berman Institute initiative dedicated to expanding public engagement with bioethics through creative storytelling. By grounding complex ethical questions in compelling narratives for a broad audience, playing god? advances the iDeas Lab’s mission as a creative studio and incubator for world class stories at the intersection of science, ethics and medicine.

“We all face these kind of ethical dilemmas in our lifetime, so we should all be a part of how decisions around them are made.With playing god? we invite listeners into meaningful conversations by sharing powerful first-person testimonies of people whose lives have been directly changed through medical and scientific innovation,” said Lauren Arora Hutchinson, PhD, MPH, Director of the iDeas Lab and host of the series.

“Through storytelling and immersive sound design, we are meeting listeners in spaces where they are used to consuming stories. We are so grateful to everyone who shared their story in this series.”

The podcast’s impact also extends into educational settings through playing god? in the Classroom, a suite of free educational materials drawing upon the first season’s episodes as a resource to help educators bring bioethics issues into high school and undergraduate learning environments. These resources—including lesson plans, discussion guides, and classroom activities—enable students to explore the ethical questions raised in each episode in ways that are engaging and relevant.

Building on the success of those materials, the Berman Institute plans to develop a new set of companion educational resources for Season Two, giving educators fresh tools to foster meaningful discussions around relevant ethical issues in health and medicine.

“playing god? examines bioethics questions that arise in medicine, science, and health policy,” said Anna Mastroianni, JD, MPH, Research Professor of Bioethics and Law at the Berman Institute and an executive producer of the podcast. “The stories at the center of each episode help draw listeners into those questions, while the podcast, public events, and educational materials support informed engagement with bioethics issues that many people will encounter over the course of their own lives.”

For more information about playing god? and the Season Two launch event, visit bioethics.jhu.edu/playing-god.

Bringing Bioethics Into Classrooms Everywhere

The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics has partnered with a group of nationally recognized K-12 educators from across the country to bring bioethics into science classes everywhere.

Drawing upon the Institute-produced podcast playing god? for its source material, this collaboration has produced free lesson plans and related educational materials, now available online for teachers who wish to introduce their students to complex ethical questions generated by the development and use of new scientific and medical innovations. Each episode serves as a unique case study that explores bioethics principles and inspires lively discussions.

“As science and medicine advance at an ever-increasing pace, new innovations raise new questions about their ethical use. The Berman Institute is committed to bringing these bioethics discussions beyond the boundaries of academic research,” said Jeffrey Kahn, the Institute’s Director.

“We are developing new approaches to sharing bioethics in effective and compelling ways with the general public. That was part of the motivation behind creating the podcast, and the creation and distribution of these educational materials will enable us to engage students in bioethics topics earlier in their education.”

Launched last year, the 10-episode first season of playing god? shared the deeply personal stories of people caught at the life-and-death crossroads of medical innovations and ethical dilemmas. After garnering more than 200,000 listeners, the podcast’s producers sought to expand its reach by creating educational materials that would enable teachers to use each episode as the source material for a lesson on bioethics.

To develop the materials, the Institute turned to teachers participating in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program, which provides accomplished K-12 STEM educators the opportunity to work in federal agencies or in U.S. Congressional offices, applying their extensive knowledge and classroom experiences to national education program and/or education policy efforts.

Eight of the Fellows, drawn from public and private schools across the country, formed an advisory board that helped shape, review, and pilot the educational materials.

“Students today have tremendous interest in the societal impacts of technological innovation, but it can be challenging to find appropriate, relevant materials to engage and educate them on these topics. This collaboration provides teachers such materials, suitable for a wide range of grades and subjects,” said Samantha Willsey, a science teacher from Indiana and 2023-2024 Einstein Fellow. “As an educator, it has been incredibly rewarding to work with the researchers at the Berman Institute and develop something that will benefit so many students and teachers.

Each of the podcast’s 10 episodes has a suite of accompanying educational materials, that includes a summary, glossary of terms and bioethics concepts, a discussion guide for teachers, suggestions for group and individual activities, supplemental readings, and list of related careers. Each lesson incorporates the stories told in the podcast to prompt students to recognize the societal impact of science and technology, and to deliberate and form solutions to tough ethical challenges.

A second season of playing god? will launch in 2025, and the Berman Institute plans to develop educational materials for those episodes as well.

“The insight and knowledge of the teachers on our advisory board has been invaluable,” said Berman Institute faculty member Amelia Hood, who drafted the educational materials. “We hope this is just the first of many collaborations with K-12 educators as we strive to share bioethics with as many audiences as possible.”

To access the educational materials and sign up for emailed updates, visit: www.bioethics.jhu.edu/PGITC.

Making the Moral Case Against Vigilante Justice

Travis Rieder, an associate research professor and the director of education initiatives at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, published an essay in the Dec. 13 New York Times titled “The Moral Case Against Vigilante Justice.”

In the essay, Rieder argues that being subjected to such broken systems shouldn’t break our morals: “This tragic situation should motivate us to change the institutions and structures that have failed so many people. But not to give murder a pass, and especially not to glorify it.”

Rieder has a long and difficult personal history with the U.S. healthcare system and insurance industry, as he detailed in his 2019 book In Pain. Despite that experience, he makes the case that “feeling bad for someone’s plight — or even sharing it — doesn’t make that person’s actions permissible. The accused man may well have been wronged by the health care system, as many people reading this most likely have. But he still committed murder.”

On the same day, Berman Institute faculty member Mario Macis was interviewed by the Baltimore Banner about consumers’ distrust of private insurance companies.

In a national survey Macis co-authored, private insurers rated lower on trust than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Medicare and Medicaid. Doctors and nurses rated highest. The reason, Macis said, is the belief that insurers prioritize profits over their clients’ health and well-being.

“This perception that the motivation of insurance companies — and pharmaceutical companies, too ― is making money destroys trust in these institutions,” he said.

Another factor is that requests for coverage are often denied, which contributes to a feeling that “insurance companies are not keeping their promise,” Macis said.

Berman Institute-Produced Bioethics Podcast Recognized with Three 2024 Signal Awards

playing god?, the 10-episode podcast launched in October 2023 by the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics in conjunction with Pushkin Industries, has received three awards in this year’s Signal Awards, a national competition recognizing the most meaningful and potent podcasts being made today, as judged by a collective of leaders in the field. Recognition for playing god? included:

The 10-episode first season of playing god? shared the deeply personal stories of people caught at the life-and-death crossroads of medical innovations and ethical dilemmas, attracting more than 200,000 listeners.

To expand the podcast’s reach, its producers have partnered with a group of nationally recognized K-12 educators from across the country to develop educational materials that will enable teachers to use each episode as source material for a lesson on bioethics. These lesson plans will be available on the Berman Institute’s website in November.

A second season of playing god? is currently in production and will debut in early 2025.

Faculty Receive Discovery Award for Project Highlighting Children with Medical Complexity

“‘Feels Like Home’: Lived Experiences of Children with Medical Complexity and Their Families,” an interactive audiovisual experience that will bring multiple audiences into the homes of children with medical complexity (CMC) and their families, has been named the recipient of a 2024 Discovery Award given to interdisciplinary faculty teams across Johns Hopkins University.

Led by Rebecca Seltzer, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine, and Lauren Arora Hutchinson, Director of the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg iDeas Lab at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, the project will result in three distinct outputs:

  •  An audio documentary intended for broad public audiences that explores how families with CMC experience their home environment, a unique blend of hospital and traditional home;
  •  A short film to immerse the viewers in how families with CMC adapt/build their home environment to meet their child and family’s needs, capturing both challenges and ingenuity;
  • An interactive website to house the multimedia created and collected through this project.

“We envision the audio documentary and short film to be used on broader scales as teaching and advocacy tools. This could include incorporating them in medical provider training programs; using them as central discussion elements at conferences, panels, and live events; sharing short snippets in policy-making spaces,” said Dr. Seltzer.

The interactive website created during the initial phase will begin as a dynamic hosting platform for the audio and video deliverables and grow over time into a hub where audiences come to get resources and share their own stories.
The Discovery Awards encourage faculty from various disciplines to collaborate in addressing multifaceted challenges and pushing the boundaries of understanding. Altogether, the winning project teams—chosen from 286 proposals—include 148 individuals representing 11 Johns Hopkins entities.

“This project is an example of how the iDeas Lab can work with faculty from the outset of a project to envision and create outputs that will reach and immerse audiences beyond academia, getting them to think deeply and differently about topics,” said Arora Hutchinson. “The Lab has a team of creative producers – specialists in audio, video, and digital media who produce podcasts, videos, screenplays, films, and interactive projects – who look forward to creatively engaging with families with lived experiences on this important matter and making sure their unique perspectives are heard and shared.”

In addition, Abigail Brickler, a production assistant at the iDeas Lab, has experience as the caregiver of a parent with medical complexity and brings that important perspective to this project. Other key partners on the project include parent caregivers of children with medical complexity and the Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center.

“This project’s deliverables are both public-facing and family-centered, which we hope will foster feelings of community amongst similarly-situated families and promote a shared sense of humanity amongst audiences who perhaps were previously unaware,” said Seltzer.

Bringing Bioethics into the Classroom

The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics is partnering with a group of nationally recognized K-12 educators from across the country to bring bioethics into science classes everywhere.

Drawing upon the Institute-produced podcast playing god? for its source material, this collaboration is producing free lesson plans and related educational materials for teachers who wish to introduce their students to complex ethical questions generated by the development and use of new scientific and medical innovations. Each episode will serve as a unique case study that explores bioethics principles and inspires lively discussions.

“As science and medicine advance at an ever-increasing pace, new innovations raise new questions about their ethical use. The Berman Institute is committed to bringing these bioethics discussions beyond the boundaries of academic research,” said Jeffrey Kahn, the Institute’s Director.

“We are developing new approaches to sharing bioethics in effective and compelling ways with the general public. That was part of the motivation behind creating the podcast, and the creation and distribution of these educational materials will enable us to engage students in bioethics topics earlier in their education.”

Launched last fall, the 10-episode first season of playing god? shared the deeply personal stories of people caught at the life-and-death crossroads of medical innovations and ethical dilemmas. After garnering more than 200,000 listeners, the podcast’s producers sought to expand its reach by creating educational materials that would enable teachers to use each episode as the source material for a lesson on bioethics.

To develop the materials, the Institute has turned to teachers participating in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program, which provides accomplished K-12 STEM educators the opportunity to spend 11 months working in federal agencies or in U.S. Congressional offices, applying their extensive knowledge and classroom experiences to national education program and/or education policy efforts. Eight of the Fellows, drawn from public and private schools across the country, formed an advisory board that is helping shape, review, and pilot the educational materials.

“Students today have tremendous interest in the societal impacts of technological innovation, but it can be challenging to find appropriate, relevant materials to engage and educate them on these topics. This collaboration provides teachers such materials, suitable for a wide range of grades and subjects,” said Samantha Willsey, a science teacher from Indiana and 2023-2024 Einstein Fellow “As an educator, it has been incredibly rewarding to work with the researchers at the Berman Institute and develop something that will benefit so many students and teachers.

Each of the podcast’s 10 episodes will have a suite of accompanying educational materials, available this fall, that include a summary, glossary of terms and bioethics concepts, a discussion guide for teachers, suggestions for group and individual activities, supplemental readings, and list of related careers. Each lesson incorporates the stories told in the podcast to prompt students to recognize the societal impact of science and technology, and to deliberate and form solutions to tough ethical challenges.

A second season of playing god? will launch in early 2025, and the Berman Institute plans to develop educational materials for those episodes as well.

“The insight and knowledge of the teachers on our advisory board has been invaluable,” said Berman Institute faculty member Amelia Hood, who drafted the educational materials. “We hope this is just the first of many collaborations with K-12 educators as we strive to share bioethics with as many audiences as possible.”