playing god?

Episodes

1. Gut Strings

   13 Oct 2026 · 24 min

   playing god? presents… "Gut Strings," a musician’s experience with uncertainty around an unexpected colon cancer diagnosis. Loren Ludwig, previously protected by confidence in his ability to learn his way past personal…

2. A World Without Nurses

   7 Jul 2026 · 25 min

   playing god? presents… "A World Without Nurses"—it’s a future no one wants to imagine, but doing so brings into sharp focus just how essential nurses are today. Prepare to be transported into this dystopian scenario…

3. playing god? presents...

   30 Jun 2026 · 2:14 · Trailer

   The iDeas Lab team is hard at work on playing god? Season 3, but we have some special things to share with you in the meantime. Listen for a preview of what’s coming next in the feed. And we’re opening a voicemail…

4. Two Bodies, One Prescription

   23 Jun 2026 · 24 min · S2 E6

   When Ashley Womble decides she wants to start a family, she worries she'll need to stop taking her antidepressant medication. Instead of finding clear guidance, she runs head-first into a troubling reality: many of the…

5. A Shot at Weight Loss: Should I Take It?

   16 Jun 2026 · 26 min · S2 E5

   Rebecca Morrison is healthy by many measures. But like millions of people today, she finds herself wondering whether or not she should be taking a GLP-1 drug. What's the right thing to do? This episode explores how…

6. How Far Would You Go to Have a Healthy Baby?

   9 Jun 2026 · 29 min · S2 E4

   After losing their son Noahto to mitochondrial disease, Kristelle and Evan Shulman are determined that his death will not be in vain, holding fast to their dream of having healthy, biologically-related children. This…

7. Losing Noah

   2 Jun 2026 · 25 min · S2 E3

   When Kristelle and Evan Shulman lose their young son Noah to a rare mitochondrial disease, they are told they may never be able to have a healthy biologically related child. Then they discover mitochondrial replacement…

8. To Infinity and Beyond—At What Cost?

   26 May 2026 · 25 min · S2 E2

   Humanity is actively working towards a mission to Mars. When astronauts like Bernard Harris leave Earth, they accept risk as part of the mission. But a journey to Mars would push that risk into entirely new…

9. I Need You To Help Me Die

   19 May 2026 · 29 min · S2 E1

   When journalist Esmé Deprez receives a text from her father, Ron Deprez, asking for help to die, she enters one of the most ethically fraught spaces in modern medicine: Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD). This episode…

10. Coming soon: playing god? Season 2

    12 May 2026 · 1:48 · S2 E1 · Trailer

    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. Brought to you by the Dracopoulos-Bloomberg…

11. Prequel: The God Squad

    12 Dec 2023 · 21 min · S1 E10

    Back in the 1960s, a committee of seven Seattle residents met regularly to decide which patients with chronic kidney disease were “worthy” of life-saving dialysis. Whoever wasn’t selected by the committee would likely…

12. The Future of Baby-Making

    5 Dec 2023 · 34 min · S1 E9

    In this episode we head into the future to learn about a controversial technology that could change the face of reproduction. Researchers are developing a technology called in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), which can…

13. Miracle Drugs, Million Dollar Price Tags

    28 Nov 2023 · 32 min · S1 E8

    Cheryl Yoder’s son Jase, was born with an incurable rare disease called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), which meant he was unlikely to live beyond two years old. Jase managed to get a spot in a clinical trial for an…

14. An Off Switch For Depression?

    21 Nov 2023 · 28 min · S1 E7

    For years Brandy Ellis had tried everything to treat depression but nothing worked. Then one day she heard about something called deep brain stimulation, a brain implant that treats some neurological conditions. This…

15. Creating One Life to Save Another

    14 Nov 2023 · 29 min · S1 E6

    When Laurie Strongin’s son Henry was born with the rare, often fatal disease of Fanconi anemia, doctors told her that the best way to save his life was with an umbilical cord blood transplant from a genetically matched…

16. A Womb of One’s Own?

    7 Nov 2023 · 35 min · S1 E5

    Jen Dingle yearned to get pregnant and have children, but there was one problem: she was born without a uterus. So when she was ready to have children she was desperate to find a way to do it. That’s when she learned…

17. Why Can’t I Buy a Kidney?

    31 Oct 2023 · 25 min · S1 E4

    It can take years to get to the top of the waiting list for a donated kidney in the U.S. So when Sally Satel found out she’d need a kidney transplant, she wondered why she couldn’t just buy one. We’ll hear from a…

18. Need a new Liver? Drinkers to the back of the Line.

    24 Oct 2023 · 30 min · S1 E3

    One day, when she was only 39, bar manager Jamie Imhof collapsed. While she lay in a coma, doctors told her family that they knew how to save her life: she needed an immediate liver transplant. But, transplant centers…

19. The Girl Who Died Twice

    17 Oct 2023 · 34 min · S1 E2

    When a 13 year-old girl from Oakland named Jahi McMath was pronounced brain dead after a surgical complication in 2013, California issued her a death certificate. Five years later, she received a second death…

20. I Would’ve Let You Die, Too

    10 Oct 2023 · 28 min · S1 E1

    While Andrea Rubin lay unconscious and severely burned after a car fire, her father told doctors to do everything they could to keep her alive. She would need many surgeries. Her quality of life wouldn’t be the same.…

21. Introducing: playing god?

    26 Sep 2023 · 3:21 · S1 E1 · Trailer

    A new podcast about the complex ethical questions that get raised with groundbreaking medical innovations. Brought to you by Pushkin Industries and the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. New episodes weekly…