Episode #16
Modern Medical Ethics Is Only 40 Years Old — Here's Where It Actually Came From
Where does ethics actually come from? Mike and Rob trace the entire arc of medical ethics — from the Code of Hammurabi in 1754 BCE and the Greek philosophers, through Hippocrates and "do no harm," all the way to the four pillars that govern clinical practice today. Here's the part that surprises everyone: the framework modern healthcare runs on — autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice — is barely 40 years old, formalized by Beauchamp and Childress in 1979. Rob walks through the hard history that forced it into being: the Nuremberg Code born from the Nazi doctor trials, the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki, and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study that ran for 40 years until journalist Jean Heller exposed it in 1972. It's a fast, surprisingly gripping tour through the moral codes, atrocities, and turning points that shaped how we treat patients today — and a look ahead at the next frontier: what AI will do to ethical decision-making in medicine. Whether you're an RT, a nursing or med student, or just someone who thinks about right and wrong in healthcare, this one reframes how you see the field. Join the conversation. Let's get ethical.
