hierarchy Archives | The Short Coat

What you should know about the super hierarchical world of medicine

Have you ever wondered what the world of medicine would look like to an ethnographer? To University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Professor Tania Jenkins, perhaps it looks like a ladder of status, from the lowly med student to the exalted attending (and even higher). For her book Doctors’ Orders: The Making of Status Hierarchies in an Elite Profession, Professor Jenkins spent years looking at the construction and consequences of those distinctions for doctors before, during, and after their training, especially among American, international, and osteopathic residents in two US hospitals.

Cohosts Emma Barr (M3), Bryn Myers (M2), and Greta Becker (M2) discuss with Dr. Jenkins why status hierarchies seem so important in medicine, what they accomplish and inhibit, and why they may be short-changing the system, the practitioners, and the patients.

Dr. Jenkins also helps us answer a question from “Glisten Rumpybottom” about the future of medicine as the scope of practice for mid-level practitioners like nurse practitioners and PAs continues to expand. Is this a safety issue or a turf war?

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Kaci McCleary, Dylan Todd, Amy Young and Corbin Weaver are on hand this time to talk about the two-week specialty rotations, like Ophthalmology and Radiology. You see, as Kaci entered her clinical clerkships, she had four of these short rotations in a row, and found herself hating them. They seemed like a waste of time, and weren’t offering her much in the way of hands-on experience. While her experience isn’t universal, we thought some might question the utility of these short rotations, especially if one isn’t going into a specialty but is more focused on primary care. Fortunately, there’s some hope on the horizon in the form of instant learning through brain stimulation. Will future med students even need two-weekers? This leads us into a discussion on the place of rebellion in medical school. Does medicine need people who buck the system? How should someone who sees herself as firmly outside the box react when they’re surrounded by it?

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