Cancer Stories: The Art Of Oncology

“My White Coat Doesn’t Fit” by Narjust Florez (Duma): a medical oncologist shares her story about exclusion, depression and finding her way in oncology as a Latina in medicine and oncology.   TRANSCRIPT Narrator: My White Coat Doesn’t Fit, by Narjust Duma, MD (10.1200/JCO.21.02601) There I was, crying once again all the way from the hospital’s parking lot to my apartment, into the shower, and while trying to fall asleep. This had become the norm during my internal medicine residency. For years, I tried hard every day to be someone else in order to fit in. It started with off-hand comments like “Look at her red shoes,” “You are so colorful,” and “You are so Latina.” These later escalated to being interrupted during presentations with comments about my accent, being told that my medical school training in my home country was inferior to my US colleagues, and being assigned all Spanish-speaking patients because “They are your people.” Some of those comments and interactions were unintentionally harmful but led t