Abstract

As I See It is a collection of personal essays about health care and health care reform.The authors of the essays in this volume are primarily health care professionals who have stepped back from their daily work to reflect on how their personal experiences relate to systemic and/or public policy issues in health care. Readers are invited to reexamine taken-for-granted assumptions as they explore the complex interrelationships between health care practice, economic markets, ethics, and social responsibility. The power of these essays comes from the way they magnify personal experience. These kinds of stories have the capacity to influence public dialogue and shape public policy. These essays give form and life to the contradictions and challenges of our health care system in ways that antiseptic discussions of public policy can not. The essays in this collection were written by professionals enrolled in The University of Texas at Tyler s MBA program. After reading a number of personal health care essays, they were asked to write essays of their own about experiences that were meaningful to them and that had changed the way they thought about health care and/or a particular health care issue. This project grew out of Dr. Brent D. Beal s longstanding interest in health care, economic markets, and social responsibility."