Defying Sterotypes

After a day at the beach with Dan and Shana's small group (who also happen to be my closest friends here), I had my last interview with a doctor. It was a really great interview, and just  great conversation in general.  My talk with Tati* was fascinating because she defies a lot of stereotypes--about Dominicans, about doctors, about the middle class in general.

She's worked in the same public hospital for her entire career, earning on average $15,000 per year. She'll show up in the middle of the night if a patient needs her--from the time they come in to the time they leave she takes her responsibility to her patients very seriously. She believes that listening to her patients and explaining their illness to them--even something serious like HIV--are both important parts of the healing process--of allowing her patients to lead normal, healthy lives. In this way, I sense that she's not the "typical" Dominican doctor who deals with cases on a crisis basis rather than a long-term basis. 

She never married, and lives with her mom and sister in a nice, middle-class neighborhood.  "With more people, you're more alone" she told me, so she doesn't regret not having a bigger family around her--something that's pretty counter-cultural in a country where extended families of 12+ people all living together is a common occurrence. She's the only Dominican I've ever met who has heard of Duke and follows Duke basketball with a passion that would warm any Cameron Crazy's heart. This afternoon we spent a good five minutes talking about Grant Hill this afternoon and all the other Duke players who have made it in the NBA. She spends every October in Miami and Texas visiting family which means that even though she doesn't completely understand football, she's a Dolphins fan.   

As a middle-class outsider, I often view the public system here harshly, hearing about all the horrible experiences that people have had--doctors pulling off toenails without anesthesia, turning away people who will take too many resources to take care of, etc.. Tati however, scoffed at the idea that she might want to work in any other sector of health. For her, private care is too money driven; she believes in taking care of people and treating them as a fellow human being in need of her help whether or not they have money.  In her view, if people had to pay for public health care, the whole idea of health care would be completely shot.

As a researcher, Tati is a somewhat frustrating anomaly--she loves working in the public sector, she doesn't think she'd get paid more elsewhere. Sure, they sometimes have to get creative, but at her hospital they use the resources they have and take care of their patients. But as a person, Tati gives me hope. She is a wonderful doctor with a huge heart who works in the public sector not because she has to, but because she loves it. Sometimes she yells at her patients because they're not following their treatment, or because they're making their blood pressure problem worse by drinking 6 cups of coffee a day, but she educates her patients and gives them steps to follow back to a normal life. Her answers to my questions don't fit easily into what I had expected or discovered thus far, but that doesn't make them any less valid. She's just going to make my thesis writing a little more interesting.    

*Tati gave permission for me to use her name in talking about and publishing my research.