How often do you think “ethics” when seeing a patient? You may believe that ethical issues are always at the front of your mind, but is this really so, and would a checklist help? Our ethics commentator Daniel Sokol thinks it would (doi:10.1136/bmj.b879). Based on his recent experience of joining hospital ward rounds, he gives two cases where patients would have been better off if ethical issues had been raised routinely: a man with HIV infection whose views on disclosure to his wife and girlfriend were not known, and a demented man with cancer who was on intensive care because his advance …