Vania Smith-Oka

Becoming Gods is a vivid ethnography of how a cohort of doctors-in-training in the Mexican city of Puebla learn to become doctors. It illustrates the messy, complex, and nuanced nature of medical training, where trainees not only have to acquire a monumental number of skills but do so against a backdrop of strict hospital hierarchy and a crumbling national medical system that deeply shape who they are.

Based on eyewitness accounts of rituals conducted at the height of Inca rule, this is a key document that provides an unparalleled account of the prayers and religious celebrations of the Inca in a context of rapidly changing cultural practices.

The Work of Hospitals, a volume on hospitals as clinical and social institutions, foregrounds the tensions inherent in efforts to sustain functional health services in resource-poor states. Global ethnographic research shows how clinicians and patients struggle, without adequate supplies and personnel, in times of financial austerity.  The chapters document a vast gulf worldwide between the idealized mission of the hospital and the implementation of this mission in everyday practice.