The Daily Populous Monday February 8th, 2021 night edition
Authored by journals.sagepub.com and submitted by rustoo

Prior studies note that gender- and race-based discrimination routinely inhibit women’s advancement in medical fields. Yet few studies have examined how gendered displays of deference and demeanor are interpreted by college-educated and professional Latinas/os who are making inroads into prestigious and masculinized nontraditional fields such as medicine. In this article, we elucidate how gender shapes perceptions of authority and competence among the same pan-ethnic group, and we use deference and demeanor as an analytical tool to examine these processes. Our analysis underscores three main points of difference: (1) gendered cultural taxation; (2) microaggressions from women nurses and staff and; (3) the questioning of authority and competence to elucidate how gendered racism manifests for Latina/o doctors. Taking demonstrations of gendered deference and demeanors are vital to transforming medical schools and creating more inclusive spaces for all physicians and patients. Conclusions are based on experiences reported in interviews with 48 Latina/o physicians and observation in their places of work in Southern California.

jaov00 on February 7th, 2021 at 13:36 UTC »

Okay, so one huge thing I'm seeing missing from comments here: being bilingual doesn't mean you're capable of translating or interpreting medical information correctly.

I am bilingual and I'm also a math teacher. But if you asked me to translate a math textbook or teach a math lesson in my native language, it would be a disaster. Having to interpret medical information when you haven't been trained to could result in misinformation and be a huge liability.

Imagine if the instructions for your medicine were "lost in translation?" Or if the risks of a certain surgery were misinterpreted? Would you accept that?

I certainly wouldn't. I would want an interpreter who can do their job with certainty.

Edit: Changed "translate" to "interpret." "Translators" do written language while "interpreters" do real-time, spoken language.

lnfective on February 7th, 2021 at 13:34 UTC »

At the hospital I worked at, being bilingual did not mean you were allowed to act as translator. It was considered too risky to them. Translation was done by someone whose job was specifically translation. It can be hard enough to communicate clearly in medicine, and they did not want to take chances with things not being translated correctly.

Randall_Hickey on February 7th, 2021 at 12:23 UTC »

I can tell you working in the hospital this is very true and the Spanish-speaking people get very tired of it