Issues in Bioethics and the Concept of Scale

The Author: William A. Cook graduated from Queen’s University Medical School, Kingston, Ontario, and completed his training in plastic surgery at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Subsequently, he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada. Dr. Cook’s interest in bioethics resulted in the development of a bioethics service at River Valley Health in New Brunswick where he practices and in the completion of a Ph.D. in bioethics from the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. He continues to be active in this bioethics service and in his current mind-body medicine practice with a central focus on mindfulness and conscious living.

«William A. Cook makes a major contribution to bioethics by providing a framework to guide decisions, which are based on a balance between individual interests and the larger story that we all live within. The scalar approach is particularly applicable to the development of a new paradigm for bioethics in the health care context.» (Gary Kenyon, Founding Chair and Professor, Gerontology Department, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada)«‘Issues in Bioethics and the Concept of Scale’ is a refreshing critique that explicitly acknowledges the importance of considering social context, hierarchy theory and the concept of scale in the discipline of bioethics. This is a pivotal insight that will revolutionize the assumptions upon which the field of bioethics rests.» (Timothy K. S. Christie, Director, Ethics Services, Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation; Adjunct Professor, Department of Bioethics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada)