Excerpts from my book:
"The point [of systems thinking] is not to display a neon sign to the world that one is a "systems thinker" or exercising "systems thinking". No disclaimer must be affixed to the start of every policy document with the marque to the effect that no interdependences of the components were harmed in the development of this policy..."
Chapter 1, Framing and Revisiting Ethical Policy with a Systems Perspectives
"It is perhaps the impurity of human experience that makes the work of public health the most noble of all. It is just so hard to lose while gaining."
Chapter 2, The Public, Private and 'Stepping on Toes' in Healthcare
"Rule imply people are devoid of cognition or autonomous ethical struggles. Here lies the conundrum. But there are no ironclad rules in which agents assert as their decisions. Political decisions are not made within civic squares. Rationality is very restrictive to achieve. Rule-based models offer choices devoid of the messiness of cognition. A trigger is a trigger. There are no purposeful agents to contend with. The rules have been created to MIMIC reality...Rules offer a foundation but are not the whole story."
Chapter 5, Health Systems and Policymaking as the "Price is Right"
"Sometimes the rules are not made by the public required to follow them."
Chapter 6, Ethical and Systemic Approaches to Health Policy
“Each policy must be approached and respected as a necessity to prudent, systemic action to debate, not as a letdown of the expected policy desired beforehand. The satiation comes in what policymakers do with the systemic knowledge that is gained and ideally applied with prudent judgment and systemic consideration.”
Chapter 8, Mental and Simulated Models in Health Policy Making
"Anna Julia Cooper wrote in 1892 that there are two kinds of peace (balance) in the world: one produced by suppression and the others brought by proper adjustment to living acting forces...Just as a system variable leaves behind a history. so does the veiled history of people of color. If the peace allowed by optimal health remains confined to the uncertainty of such a hermeneutic, not exploring "The Other" of the black female or any other marginalized group, for that matter, may be the worst folly of all in policy. Even if race, gender or take your pick is found to be exogenous, it does not mean that this striving to reconcile dichotomies is inconsequential...Social complexity in networks based on "other-isms" requires the critical examination of the overlapping multiplexity of role that are affected by social constraints. Roles, while important in understanding the nature of social relationships, are NOT the same as social projections of worth both internally and externally ascribed to those roles."
Chapter 9, Social Disparity, Policy, and Sharing in Public Health
"While systems have antiquity that lingers, policies have a legacy that leaves its own residue of feedbacks behind."
Chapter 9, Social Disparity, Policy, and Sharing in Public Health