Artifacts and Organizations

13

Stuff Matters: Artifacts, Social Identity, and Legitimacy in the U.S. Medical Profession

C. Marlene FiolEdward J. O'Connor

University of Colorado at Denver

Two years ago, as I was helping my sister move, I spotted the black bag in the back of her U-Haul truck—she was using it to carry her household tools. A flood of memories rushed through me. This was the bag that my dad, a physician in Paraguay, South America, had used from the 1940s until he retired. He was “el señor doctor” . . . and the black bag, strapped to the saddle of his horse, was a symbol of the respect he commanded. He and the bag traveled extensively throughout the countryside of Paraguay, seeking out leprosy patients, abandoned by friends and family and in desperate need of ...