Narrative matters: the power of the personal essay in health policy

Intro -- Contents -- Foreword -- Preface: About This Book -- List of Contributors -- CHAPTER 1 WRITING TO CHANGE THINGS: ESSAYS ON THE POLICY NARRATIVE -- Me and the System: The Personal Essay and Health Policy -- Using and Misusing Anecdote in Policy Making -- Out of the Closet and into the Legislature: Breast Cancer Stories -- CHAPTER 2 DOLLARS AND SENSE: HARD FINANCIAL REALITIES -- Gouging the Medically Uninsured: A Tale of Two Bills -- Tea, Biscuits, and Health Care Prioritizing -- Doctors Have Patients, Governors Have Citizens -- Hooked on Neonatology -- Here Comes Trouble -- Shopping for Long-Term Care -- On Being a Grantmaker -- CHAPTER 3 BEARING WITNESS: PATIENTS' STORIES -- ¡Despierta! -- Pizza Ship -- Where's David? -- Maria -- Voices from the Clinic: AIDS Then and Now -- The Yellow Baby -- Blind Faith and Choice -- CHAPTER 4 THE MADDENING SYSTEM: FRUSTRATIONS AND SOLUTIONS -- Of Wheelchairs and Managed Care -- Getting the Elderly Their Due -- My Mother and the Medical Care Ad-hoc-racy -- Tin-Cup Medicine -- Acquainted with the Night -- Learning Genetics -- CHAPTER 5 TROUBLE IN THE RANKS: PROFESSIONAL PROBLEMS -- Accountable but Powerless -- Leaving Nursing -- Dolores -- Attending Death with Dignity -- CHAPTER 6 DRUG RESISTANCE: BATTLING UNDUE INFLUENCE -- A Matter of Influence -- As Drug Marketing Pays Off, My Mother Pays Up -- No Free Lunch -- CHAPTER 7 DISPARITY DILEMMAS: STORIES ON RACE AND ETHNICITY -- Out of the Shadow -- Subcutaneous Scars -- No Come Nada -- Concordance -- La Promotora -- Immigration Pediatrics -- CHAPTER 8 VALUES AND CHOICE: STORIES OF PRACTICAL ETHICS -- Casey's Legacy -- No One Needs to Know -- At the End of a Day -- Life but No Limb: The Aftermath of Medical Error -- Incidental Illness -- The Rest Is Silence -- DNAbling Parents -- What Are We Going to Do with Dad? -- Kidneys and the Kindness of Strangers.