An Ethicist on How to Make Impossible Decisions

April 1, 2020

(The Atlantic) – The question of who gets a ventilator and who does not, when two people are both in real need, is a question of justice of the sort doctors are not trained to adjudicate. But others are, and this is the moment they’ve been training for. On this episode of the Social Distance podcast, Katherine Wells, the executive producer of Atlantic podcasts, and I talk with medical ethicist Arthur Caplan, head of the division of Medical Ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. What follows is a transcript of our conversation, edited and condensed for clarity. You can also listen to the full episode of Social Distance here.