Through rich ethnographic narrative, Becoming Gods examines how a cohort of doctors-in-training in the Mexican city of Puebla learn to become doctors. Smith-Oka draws from compelling fieldwork, ethnography, and interviews with interns, residents, and doctors that tell the story of how medical trainees learn to wield new tools, language, and technology and how their white coat, stethoscope, and newfound technical, linguistic, and sensory skills lend them an authority that they cultivate with each practice, transforming their sense of self. Becoming Gods illustrates the messy, complex, and nuanced nature of medical training, where trainees not only have to acquire a monumental number of skills but do so against a backdrop of strict hospital hierarchy and a crumbling national medical system that deeply shape who they are.
Illustrations
Foreword by Lenore Manderson
Introduction: Medicine as an (Extra)Ordinary Social Commitment
1 Women Can’t Be Trauma Doctors, and Other Gendered Stories of Medicine
2 Doctors on the March: Punishment, Violence, and Protests
3 The Soul of the Hospital: Life as an Intern
4 Internalizing and Reproducing Violence
5 The Body Learns: Transforming Skills and Practice in Obstetrics Wards
Conclusion: Medicine as an Imperfect System
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
