Obstetric Training As a Rite of Passage

In this article I interpret obstetric training as an initiatory rite of passage through which nascent obstetricians are socialized into the technological model of birth, the core value and belief system of American obstetrics. Interviews with obstetricians and obstetrical residents, as well as published accounts by physicians, are used to examine both the fundamental knowledge imparted in the rituals of hospital delivery and the process by which medical students become psychologically transformed into obstetricians. I conclude by examining the challenge that both the humanistic and the holistic models pose for the dominant technological model of birth, and the effects that this challenge is having on the behavior of obstetricians and their patients.