The White Coat Dairies- more like White Coat stereotypes

 

How badly can a book disappoint you? Normally you should get over it by 2-3 days max. But in this case I feel scarred for life. I am not even exaggerating. Rage is all that I have inside me whenever this particular book pops up in my thoughts. Let's end the confusion.

✍️ I was super excited when I bought this book especially because the premise and the name. Currently an intern at a government hospital as well, I was very confident that this book is going to be my Bible. The author herself is a physician so I was very assured about its authenticity.

✍️ The first major turn off came in the very first chapter. The protagonist, Norah Kapadia suffered a needle prick injury and as protocol needs to take prophylaxis to avoid AIDS. It's a very common knowledge for all healthcare professionals. But our girl makes it an issue by lecturing the nurse about the adverse effects of certain drugs.

Well, did you actually pass your general pharmacology exam girl? Is Post Exposure Prophylaxis that new to you? Or you just wanted to show off your knowledge?

✍️ Coming to the ' Insufferable Know-it-all' part. The only fictional character I would tolerate in this category is Hermione Granger. The reason being ,she had her humility in the right place. 

Norah Kapadia is the most insolent and prideful MC that I have ever read about. Yes, being a doctor is difficult and work is too much. But that doesn't give you the license to judge every single person in the room , belittle their profession and work and simply reduce them to a lesser being.

' You don't understand my work and position' is not an excuse for being an arse. 

The sadder part is, she doesn't stop at that. Her 'beautiful brain' doesn't spare her colleagues who may not look like a typical nerdy doctor by any chance. 

Norah makes an entire scene out this nerdy doc thing. 

Firstly, if you are writing a novel about the struggles of Indian American doctor, which is so cliched as it is, just don't make it worse by making her the stereotypical South east Asian with no hobbies and no personal life. That's pathetic. Myself coming from a similar background can vouch on this that most young docs and medical students are extremely creative and fun people to be around. Like every regular teenager. And NO , we don't keep ourselves buried in books and literally I have never heard anyone mention Charles Darwin followed by an ' Obviously' as their idol. 

Why paint such a caricature? Why make it feel so forced at the point of being ridiculous?

✍️The entire novel is filled with instances of Norah impulsively doing something dramatic to 'help' her patient, totally against the protocols. And some of those have major adverse implications on her other colleagues as well. 

By my own experience, I would say such over- enthusiastic people do more harm than good creating trouble for others. It's no use.

✍️ Portrayal of The Indian Society.

A lot of Norah's character traits have been blamed on her strict upbringing which is mostly about being Indian. She's Indian, so she never smoked, never dated, no alcohol, never saw a bird on a tree etc. 

The society ladies taunt and gossip about her widowed mother for being a curse on the family in India who have no contact with them since they moved to US decades back. Sometimes the daughter is the topic of discussion as well because she's 25, educated and still unmarried. Apparently being educated is considered as a curse by Indian American middle aged ladies.

Let me remind you this was written in 2020. 

 I don't think I have to emphasize on this how much career oriented the Indian society can be. Atleast the one that has been portrayed in the novel.

 Sorry Dr. Sinha, I can't buy your made up tales of struggles and poor attempts of making this a sob story.

✍️ Vaccination and Hypocrisy.

My biggest peeve against this book roots from here.

One of Norah's closest relatives turns out to be against vaccination of her child and repeats that same old ' government and pharmaceutical company conspiracy' theory.

And this attitude is blamed on her traditional upbringing. Read that again. I have included the paragraph from the book. 

So according to the author, traditional Indian upbringing is against vaccination. Being old fashioned doesn't go with being aware. 

Ironically, India is Polio Free since 2011. We are one of the front runners in vaccination against COVID as well. And I have NEVER ever heard anti vaccination theories from a fellow Indian.

This phenomenon has been something of the Western world. And I am infuriated about how being an anti vaxxer was justified in this book.

It could have been handled so much better and used as a tool for character development. 

But no, the author found it easier to buy some tears like that.

✍️The ending is very abrupt. Norah's character development to so high arching that it becomes borderline unbelievable and unrealistic. 

Her conscience takes too long to function and give justice to those affected her actions. All this happens because she becomes one of those lovelorn heroines who leave no stones unturned to protect their love interest. Even if that means blackmailing a fellow colleague about her personal life.

WHY WHY JUST WHY?????