Rethinking Rural Health Ethics

This book challenges readers to rethink rural health ethics. Traditional approaches to health ethics are often urban-centric, making implicit assumptions about how values and norms apply in health care practice, and as such may fail to take into account the complexity, depth, richness, and diversity of the rural context. There are ethically relevant differences between rural health practice and rural health services delivery and urban practice and delivery that go beyond the stereotypes associated with rural life and rural health services. This book examines key values in the rural context that have not been fully explored or taken into account when we examine health ethics issues, including the values of community and place, and a need to “revalue” relationships. It also advocates for a greater attention to meso and macro level analysis in rural health ethics as being critical to ethical analysis of rural health care. This book is essential reading for those involved in health ethics, rural health policy and governance, and for rural health providers.

Christy Simpson is Head and an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioethics at Dalhousie University, Canada. She is the coordinator for the Ethics Collaborations with the Nova Scotia Health Authority, the IWK Health Centre, and the Nova Scotia Health Ethics Network. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology. Her primary responsibilities include ethics education and capacity-building, policy development and review, and support for clinical and organisational ethics consultations.

Fiona McDonald is a Senior Lecturer in the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology, Australia and is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Bioethics at Dalhousie University, Canada. She teaches health law, health ethics and health management at the under-graduate and graduate levels. Her research interests are focused on the governance of health systems.