The Weight of the White Coat

Few people know much about Latina/o physicians as students, people, or workers in a high-skill occupation in the United States. The Weight of the White Coat traces the life stages that Latina/o physicians follow and the mechanisms that disadvantage or advantage them throughout their careers, from the family to the practice of medicine. Glenda M. Flores turns a careful, considered eye to this pan-ethnic group with heterogeneous characteristics in an elite profession, observing how demographic characteristics such as gender and ethnicity act like cumulative weights in their coat pockets, producing hindrances for some—thus limiting their advancement—and elevating others as they provide care in poor and wealthy communities. Here, the status of Latina/o doctors provides a unique lens for examining the polyvalent weight of physicianhood within the heterogeneous and still unsettled contours of Latinidad.