The (country) road not often taken: Challenging traditional norms and assumptions in bioethics

The authors believe there is a need to challenge the urban-based ethical norms and biases built into mainstream western bioethical theory and teaching, particularly focusing on rural health practice. In ‘rethinking’ rural bioethics, they drew on interdisciplinary and feminist approaches to identify how traditional bioethics is permeated by urban and tertiary hospital-based perspectives and is primarily predicated on ‘caring for strangers.' This contrasts with the nature of rural health practice where one is often ‘caring for neighbors,' immersed in the interconnectedness of rural community life. In attending to these contextual features, the authors noted a deficiency in the traditional ethical values emphasized (such as in principlism) and posited the additional values of place, community and relationships. In this chapter, Simpson and McDonald provide a brief overview of this work in order to ground their reflections on teaching bioethics. From the perspectives of both content and process, they argue that there are important changes educators can make to teaching bioethics in order to better equip health professionals for the ethical issues that arise in their practice. Incorporating these insights into teaching bioethics is well-received by learners, particularly, but not exclusively, by those who practice in rural settings.