Medical ethics is often the stuff of esoteric academic debates and journal articles littered with $10 words. Now one of America’s most venerable bioethics think tanks is expanding its reach with a public TV special and a patient-focused website that addresses the ethical challenges of emerging medical technologies.

Genetic testing, assisted reproduction, children’s mental health and end-of-life care are among the issues addressed at The Hastings Center’s site, called “Help with Hard Questions.” The website was launched in March to coincide with the airing of an episode of the PBS program “NOVA” that was co-produced by the center and focuses on the brave new world of genomics. The program can be viewed online.

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Three decades after hospice emerged as the standard of care for terminally ill patients, the end-of-life treatments that palliative medicine physicians provide are frequently referred to as murder, euthanasia and killing.

More than half of hospice and palliative medicine physicians say patients, family members and even other health professionals have used those terms to describe care they recommended or implemented within the last five years, according to a nationwide survey of 663 palliative care doctors in the March Journal of Palliative Medicine.

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