In the following essay, Newhart describes the usefulness of My Sister's Keeper in a health and biomedical ethics course.

In The Fiction of Bioethics (reviewed by Carol Quinn in Teaching Philosophy 25:2 [June 2002]), Tod Chambers discusses what has come to be known as the distinction between the use of "thin" and "thick" case studies in bioethics. Thin case studies give only the skeletal outline of a moral dilemma, emphasize clear-cut clashes between fundamental bioethical principles, and usually take place within the public dimension of the practice of medicine, e.g., emergency rooms, clinics, etc. Chambers's conclusion is that thin case studies lend themselves to being used by their presenters to compel students (and others) to take a particular position on the ethical dilemma presented by the case. Thick case studies, on the other hand, immerse the student in the issue being presented by the case. Thick case studies...