Jeff Nisker has been writing plays since the early 1990s. He did this in order to bring audiences to the position of persons immersed in the vortex of new scientific capacity and its social implications. Jeff ultimately aims to promote humanity in health policy development. From Calcedonies to Orchids: Plays Promoting Humanity in Health Policy is a collection of plays based on Jeff's experiences, those experiences shared with him, and interviews conducted by Jeff. His first play, Orchids, explores the concepts of "health" and "enhancement," "disease" and "difference," in the new world of reproductive genetics in which he was immersed as a scientist and clinician. Sarah's Daughters suggests opening the conversation of genetic risk, rather than allowing its continued submergence in secrets of fear of genetic discrimination. A Child on Her Mind examines becoming a mother in the new reproductive technology age and juxtaposes the beauty of becoming a mother with the ugliness of societal impellations, socio-economic inequalities, and coercive relationships. Camouflage stimulates the public discussion of psychological intimate partner violence, a health issue hidden by a lack of physical bruises. Philip asks where lines should be drawn separating a child's intellectual capacity from chronological age in health policies. Jeff was inspired to write his newest play in this collection, Calcedonies, when a woman crashed into him in her chin-operated power chair and asked him to write a play about her.

Jeff Nisker is a clinician, researcher, university professor, and writer. His plays and short stories bring the general public, health professionals, and policy makers to the position of persons immersed in the social inequities of new scientific capacities. Jeff has received many research grants in the basic, clinical, and social sciences to study prevention of estrogen-related cancer, ethical and social issues in reproductive genetics, and the lack of accommodation that persons with disabilities receive for health promotion. Jeff has also co-held a Canadian Institutes of Health Research/Health Canada grant to research public engagement and citizen deliberation for health policy development through his innovative use of full-length theatre. Jeff has authored or co-authored over 170 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters, many short stories, and seven plays published in the collection From Calcedonies to Orchids: Plays Promoting Humanity in Health Policy. His plays have been performed throughout Canada, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Africa. Jeff has served on the editorial boards of Journal of Medical Humanities and ARS Medica and is the international representative on the Board of the Centre for Literature and Medicine. Jeff has served national positions such as Co-chair of Health Canada’s Advisory Committee on Reproductive and Genetic Technologies; Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada; Scientific Officer of the CIHR Peer Review Committee on Health Ethics, Law and Humanities; and Executive of the Canadian Bioethics Society. Jeff has received many research and education awards, including the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada President’s Award for the most significant contribution to the specialty; Western University’s Faculty Scholar’s Award for Innovation in Research and Education; and, for his plays promoting public engagement in health policy, Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music’s Music Excellence in Education Award, which recognizes the efforts of an outstanding educator who embraces the idea that the arts have a capacity to change the world. He was one of the first two obstetrician-gynaecologists inducted into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Through all this, Jeff has maintained his clinical practice in hormone-dependent malignancy, pituitary tumours, and reproductive endocrinology.

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