Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical School.

TLDR

The transition from aspiring layman to skilled physician is slow and halting, and studying medicine is regarded as one of the major educational ordeals of American youth, making *Boys in White* a classic study of medical student culture. The study targets how medical students feel about their training, their doctor‑teachers, and the profession they are entering. Through daily interviews and observations across classes, wards, labs, and operating theaters, the sociologists captured students’ worries, cynicism, and idealism, documenting many realities of medical education with sixty tables and illustrations as a major qualitative experiment.

Abstract

The transition from young layman aspiring to be a physician to the young physician skilled in technique and confident in his dealings with patients is slow and halting. To study medicine is generally rated one of the major educational ordeals of American youth. The difficulty of this process and how medical students feel about their training, their doctor-teachers, and the profession they are entering is the target of this study. Now regarded as a classic, Boys in White is of vital interest to medical educators and sociologists. By daily interviews and observations in classes, wards, laboratories, and operating theaters, the team of sociologists who carried out this firsthand research have not only captured the worries, cynicism, and basic idealism of medical students--they have also documented many other realities of medical education in relation to society. With some sixty tables and illustrations, the book is a major experiment in analyzing and presenting qualitative data.