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.