Expected Miracles: Surgeons at Work

Within and without the medical profession, surgeons have a special reputation. Although exceptions abound, the classic stereotype consists of a proud, aggressive, overbearing white male who "may be wrong but is never in doubt." This stereotype receives much play in popular media and criticism from many who believe there are too many doctors who deliver uncaring, uncompassionate care. "the public nature of surgery" The author of this book, a formally trained anthropologist, spent two and a half years observing surgeons, mostly general, at work in the operating room, hospital ward, and private office. She wished to avoid a posture of criticism and outrage common in studies of powerful members of a culture and to report her findings in the form of a classic ethnography. In such a work the observer "is her own measuring instrument.... Rather than seeking to measure or predict, the primary aim of ethnography is to understand."