The electronic medical record provides an exciting opportunity to support the coordination of care by medical and social providers. Many of these systems include patient portals that allow providers to share clinical information with patients in real time. These “patient portals” provide a unique opportunity for clients and patients to access and use HIV and sexually transmitted infection information for communication with healthcare providers, with potential or actual sex partners, and for tracking their own clinical course and progress. A concerted effort to develop these should include a high level of transparency and adequate support for both patient and provider.

Within the literature surrounding nonhuman animals on the one hand and cognitively disabled humans on the other, there is much discussion of where beings that do not satisfy the criteria for personhood fit in our moral deliberations. In the future, we may face a different but related problem: that we might create (or cause the creation of) beings that not only satisfy but exceed these criteria. The question becomes whether these are minimal criteria, or hierarchical, such that those who fulfill them to greater degree should be afforded greater consideration. This article questions the validity and necessity of drawing divisions among beings that satisfy the minimum requirements for personhood; considering how future beings—intelligent androids, synthezoids, even alternate-substrate sentiences—might fit alongside the “baseline” human. I ask whether these alternate beings ought to be considered different to us, and why this may or may not matter in terms of a notion of “human community.” The film Blade Runner, concerned in large part with humanity and its key synthezoid antagonist Roy Batty, forms a framing touchstone for my discussion. Batty is stronger, faster, more resilient, and more intelligent than Homo sapiens. His exploits, far beyond the capability of normal humans, are contrasted with his frailty and transient lifespan, his aesthetic appreciation of the sights he has seen, and his burgeoning empathy. Not for nothing does his creator within the mythos term him “more human than human.”

There is frequently tension in medical education between teaching moments that provide skills and knowledge for medical trainees, and instrumentalizing patients for the purpose of teaching. In this commentary, I question the ethical acceptability of the practice of providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) to dying patients who would be unlikely to survive resuscitation, as a teaching opportunity for medical trainees. This practice violates the principle of informed consent, as the patient agreed to resuscitation for the purpose of potentially prolonging life rather than to futile resuscitation as a teaching opportunity. Justifying futile resuscitation in order to practice normalizes deceptive and nonconsensual teaching cases in medical training. Condoning these behaviors as ethically acceptable trains physicians to believe that core ethical principles are relative and fluid to suit one’s purpose. I argue that these practices are antithetical to the principles espoused by both medical ethics and physician professionalism.

Electronic health records (EHRs) offer significant advantages over paper charts, such as ease of portability, facilitated communication, and a decreased risk of medical errors; however, important ethical concerns related to patient confidentiality remain. Although legal protections have been implemented, in practice, EHRs may be still prone to breaches that threaten patient privacy. Potential safeguards are essential, and have been implemented especially in sensitive areas such as mental illness, substance abuse, and sexual health. Features of one institutional model are described that may illustrate the efforts to both ensure adequate transparency and ensure patient confidentiality. Trust and the therapeutic alliance are critical to the provider–patient relationship and quality healthcare services. All of the benefits of an EHR are only possible if patients retain confidence in the security and accuracy of their medical records.

Health information technology, sometimes called biomedical informatics, is the use of computers and networks in the health professions. This technology has become widespread, from electronic health records to decision support tools to patient access through personal health records. These computational and information-based tools have engendered their own ethics literature and now present an opportunity to shape the standard medical and nursing ethics curricula. It is suggested that each of four core components in the professional education of clinicians—privacy, end-of-life care, access to healthcare and valid consent, and clinician–patient communication—offers an opportunity to leverage health information technology for curricular improvement. Using informatics in ethics education freshens ethics pedagogy and increases its utility, and does so without additional demands on overburdened curricula.

High-fidelity simulation (HFS) is a relatively new teaching modality, which is gaining widespread acceptance in medical education. To date, dozens of studies have proven the usefulness of HFS in improving student, resident, and attending physician performance, with similar results in the allied health fields. Although many studies have analyzed the utility of simulation, few have investigated why it works. A recent study illustrated that permissive failure, leading to simulated mortality, is one HFS method that can improve long-term performance. Critics maintain, however, that the use of simulated death is troubling and excessive. Given the controversy regarding simulated death, we consider the data about the educational value and the emotional harms associated with them, expecting that evidence could be useful in resolving the question. The goal of this narrative review is to explore the argument against simulated mortality and provide educators with an imperative as to why it can be safely utilized.

This article describes the components of a unique 9 month required course in bioethics for 3rd year medical students at the American University of Beirut. The blended (hybrid) learning format emphasizes three innovative learning activities: the bioethics documentary, edutainment games, and the bioethics log book. Sample student responses are included as well as an outline of limitations.

This article engages with debates concerning the moral worth of human beings with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMDs). Some argue that those with such disabilities are morally less valuable than so-called normal human beings, whereas others argue that all human beings have equal moral value and that, therefore, each group of humans ought to be treated with equal concern. We will argue in favor of a view that takes points from opposing camps in the debates about the moral worth of humans with such disabilities. Our position, roughly, is this: most humans with PIMDs are persons in the morally significant sense and, therefore, deserve moral consideration equal to that granted to so-called “normal” human beings. Some humans with PIMD may not be persons, but nevertheless deserve moral consideration equal to that of persons because they stand in a special relation to persons.