Ethics plays an important, formative role in medical education, stimulating the transformation of a physiologist-scientist into a compassionate and competent clinician. Our clinical ethics program challenges students to observe and recognize inherent value conflicts and understand how such issues must be resolved in their day-to-day work. Advances in biomedical research that hold potential to enhance human health and treat disease are provoking controversial questions of current practices in medical ethics and spawning new, unprecedented ethical dilemmas.