Description
Book SynopsisDoctors’ Orders offers a groundbreaking examination of the construction and consequences of status distinctions between physicians. Tania M. Jenkins spent years observing and interviewing American, international, and osteopathic medical residents in two hospitals to reveal the unspoken mechanisms that lead to hierarchies among supposed equals.
Trade ReviewDoctors' Orders adds essential insights to our understanding of both status and elites. This empirically rich comparative study shows how the medical profession conceptualizes itself as rewarding talent, all the while structurally organizing itself to reproduce inequalities. These are important insights for understanding the medical profession, and they extend well beyond, to a general understanding of how stratification works in America. -- Shamus Khan, coauthor of
Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus and
Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's SchoolAn important reminder that inequality exists everywhere, even within the medical profession. A major contribution to our understanding status hierarchies within medicine and their impact on patient care. -- Charles L. Bosk, author of
Forgive and Remember: Managing Medical FailureDoctors' Orders is an insightful examination of the forces that drive status inequality in medicine. I recommend it for anyone interested in how the U.S. medical residency system really works. -- Sandeep Jauhar, author of
Intern: A Doctor’s InitiationDoctors' Orders reveals stark divides in the experiences of medical school students and graduates in the United States based on degree type and nationality. Jenkins' fascinating ethnographic study shows how concerns about status at the individual and institutional levels pervade the selection and training of doctors and reproduce inequalities within the medical profession. The findings, however, transcend medicine, illuminating how taken-for-granted assumptions about the link between educational prestige and individual merit shape career outcomes among US professionals. The book is a must-read for scholars interested in medical sociology and the sociology of professions as well as practitioners. -- Lauren A. Rivera, author of
Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite JobsDoctors’ Orders sheds light on an area of medical sociology that is important but not terribly well understood. Jenkins's book is well written, insightful, and compelling. Its contribution will endure. -- Jason Schnittker, author of
The Diagnostic System: Why the Classification of Psychiatric Disorders Is Necessary, Difficult, and Never SettledWith verve and an ethnographic sensibility, Jenkins explores how the medical profession informally sorts its members into elites and an underclass. Rather than merit, structural and institutional factors determine sharply diverging career paths. In this gripping but disturbing book, medical socialization meets social inequities along class, race, and nativist lines. An absolute must read. -- Stefan Timmermans, author of
Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious DeathsA clearly written, accessible, and powerful book based on rigorous research...that should change the way sociologists view the medical profession, professional training, and the reproduction of social inequalities within professions in the United States. * Social Forces *
Such penetrating analysis makes
Doctors’ Orders an instant classic and forcefully announces Jenkins’s place at the vanguard of a new generation of scholars who apply sociological insights to the study of medical education. * American Journal of Sociology *
A must-read for those interested in medical education, the social organization of hospitals, and the reproduction of status hierarchies in the professions. * Symbolic Interaction *
Table of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
List of Terms and Acronyms
Introduction
1. Meet the Residents
2. The Match List
3. A Day on the Wards
4. Grooming
5. Graduation
6. The Navy SEALs and the National Guard
Conclusions and Implications
Appendix: On Being a “Second-Year Intern”
Notes
Works Cited
Index
