Media play a major role in the healthcare system, affecting medical research, public policy, clinical practice, and self care. Many of the goals of bioethical practice, including patient wellness, patient autonomy, and social justice, and the trend in medicine towards preserving rather than restoring health, can all be served by improving the quality of media available to patients, policy makers, researchers, and practitioners. As a result, effective engagement with media is becoming an ethical duty for medical researchers and practitioners.

At the same time, innovations in media are challenging the viability of past models of information production, distribution and consumption. Media professionals must confront new ethical issues as well — credibility, attribution, the editorial process, and the business practices are all in transition. Yet these changes offer enormous new challenges and opportunities to extend care in new ways, to share research results, engage with patient communities, and to discuss public policy issues with greater nuance and deeper understanding.

These points will be the subject of discussion at Humanizing Tomorrow’s Biomedicine XIII, an International Intensive Course in Bioethics 13th – 24th July, 2009 in Udine, Italy. Slides of the paper presentation will be available on line after the course.