Judy: Also, I see no easy way to make arranged
marriages illegal.
Yes. I've already mentioned I have a doctor friend
working in a local hospital. She told me about
many cases of Indian physicians in residency,
working toward USMLE certification here in the US,
who have arranged marriages.
"What would you do if you feel in love?" my friend
asked a female doctor.
"Love? Oh my husband would kill me if I fell in
love!" she replied.
Besides arranged marriages, these physicians bring
all kinds of bizarre cultural baggage here. For
example, in large groups--and in the past two
years there were an unusually large group of
Indians accepted at the hospital--the newly
arrived Indians try to set up caste systems among
the physicians in the hospital. Higher-caste
Indian residents will browbeat the lower caste
residents and try to make them perform a larger
share of the ordinary work. Female residents are
expected to work for the male residents, usw.
Also (and perhaps more troubling) there is a
different attitude toward cleanliness and personal
hygiene. Gray, greasy lab coats, doctors who
haven't showered or brushed their teeth in weeks,
septic junkies in ER even complaining that their
doctors stink--this situation becoming so
widespread that the hospital administration had to
intervene and DEMAND standards of personal
cleanliness for the physicians. For this is truly
an area where clinical requirements overrule any
cultural attitude toward personal appearance.
By the end of third-year residency, this
population of doctors were either failing the
program, returning to India, or had accommodated
themselves to the US standards. And among the
population who have completed their training and
established employment, the obvious differences
are null.
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