Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy

by Adia Harvey Wingfield

What happens to black health care professionals in the new economy, where work is insecure and organizational resources are scarce? In Flatlining, Adia Harvey Wingfield exposes how hospitals, clinics, and other institutions participate in “racial outsourcing,” relying heavily on black doctors, nurses, technicians, and physician assistants to do “equity work”—extra labor that makes organizations and their services more accessible to communities of color. Wingfield argues that as these organizations become more profit driven, they come to depend on black health care professionals to perform equity work to serve increasingly diverse constituencies. Yet black workers often do this labor without recognition, compensation, or support. Operating at the intersection of work, race, gender, and class, Wingfield makes plain the challenges that black employees must overcome and reveals the complicated issues of inequality in today’s workplaces and communities.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Race, Medicine, Academic, Health Care, Medical

216 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2019

About the author

Adia Harvey Wingfield is the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Arts & Sciences and Associate Dean for Faculty Development at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research examines how and why racial and gender inequality persists in professional occupations. Dr. Wingfield has lectured internationally on her research in this area, and her work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals including Social Problems, Gender & Society, and American Sociological Review. She is a former President of Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) and the current President of the Southern Sociological Society (SSS), the largest regional professional sociological association in the US. In addition to her academic scholarship, Professor Wingfield has written for mainstream outlets including Slate, The Atlantic, Vox, and Harvard Business Review, and is the recipient of the 2018 Public Understanding of Sociology Award from the American Sociological Association. Her most recent book, Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy, won the 2019 C. Wright Mills Award.

Reviews

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Equity work on the shoulders of black healthcare professionals

[linds *✧･ﾟ]

read for class

[Amaavi Miriyagalla · Rating 4 out of 5]

really interesting look at how race shapes the work of Black medical professionals at different tiers- doctors, nurses, and techs. lots of great quotes and anecdotes