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Thank you. The medical field is, well, it is a subject of politics, of business, of finance, of worry.

It touches each of us in some way throughout our lives,

and as we grow older, we find ourselves more and more dependent on it. And there are concerns about the bioethics that now prevail in health care. Welcome back to Issues, Et cetera. I'm Todd Wilkin,

joining us to begin a two-part series on Bioethics for nurses. Dr. Charles Comosi, he's Associate Professor of Moral Theology and Bioethics at the Catholic University of America. He's co-author of the book, Bioethics for Nurses, A Christian Moral Vision. Dr. Comosey, welcome back. Hey, Todd, it's good to be with you again. How would you summarize the

bioethical challenges that nurses face in medicine today? Well, there's a lot, but if you just

talk to them, the first thing they almost always say is we're way understaffed. So whatever

business model that's in place for them is often trying to suck every last hour, every last

minute across as many patients as possible, which puts a lot of, obviously, pressure on them.

In addition to that, though, I think in the last few years and in a related story, actually,

AI, which is affecting everything, virtually everything, is certainly affecting nurses because they're worried about actually being replaced.

The kind of efficiency concerns, the money maximization concerns that leads to understaffing is actually leading towards more exploration of AI use and replacing them altogether.

What about the COVID-era heightened bioethical challenges for nurses?

Well, it's interesting, you know, those of us who are at least old enough to remember,

nurses were our frontline warriors in many contexts, obviously healthcare context.

I was thinking about this the other day.

I don't think it's quite accurate to call them cannon fodder or something like this,

but we had to put someone on the front lines to care for these most vulnerable people that could infect folks.

And nurses stepped up as they do so often.

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