Balancing the needs of the many against the needs of the few: Aliens, holograms, and discussions of medical ethics

Healthcare educators need to prepare their students to become effective medical professionals, capable of utilising their own personal wisdom as well as several different ethical theories and codes of conduct in their practice. This involves providing training so that students can be professionally socialised and gain an understanding of appropriate ethical behaviour in their discipline. However, medical ethics is a challenging concept to teach, as it is complex, cognitively demanding and often subjective. Pedagogic innovation can therefore be beneficial in creating learning opportunities that allow students to explore medical ethics and their own social and cultural biases in an experiential way.