Abstract
We argue in this chapter that we need use an ethics lens to critically examine stereotypes that idealise rural life and rural health care and be attentive to the ways in which they inform our thinking, including whether they have any negative impacts on rural health providers or patients. We ask whether our nostalgia about rural life and rural health care, as framed by the stereotypes of the idyll and the ideal rural health provider, may be obstructing the development of better policies and decisions about the provision of rural health services, much in the same way that the deficit or dystopia framing, discussed in Chap. 3, may limit the development of health policies and practices. It is our hope that by examining these stereotypes, we will be able to reduce injustice or inequities and make better decisions about providing health care to all citizens, wherever they reside.
Once a day – once every single day for 40 years – my father would drive the 17 miles to the local [rural] hospital to make rounds on his patients, then return to his office for morning consultation hours, and afternoon hours, and, several days a week, evenings. His work, our town, our lives were one, in rhythm (Berwick 2009, 128).
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Notes
- 1.
We also acknowledge the rural idyll is in fact a white rural idyll in nations like Canada, Australia, the United States, and New Zealand. In these countries the rural idyll is embedded within the colonial legacy of white settler societies (Cairns 2013). While we do not directly engage with this perspective in this chapter, we acknowledge its importance.
- 2.
Doctor and Doll, March 1929 The Saturday Evening Post.
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Simpson, C., McDonald, F. (2017). The Idealisation of Rural Life and Rural Health Care. In: Rethinking Rural Health Ethics. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 72. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60811-2_4
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