"The Host is inviting you to join Breakout Room: 3.” I noticed my hands had tensed up as I moused over to click “Join” and start my next Multiple Mini Interview. Medical schools use the MMI to interview applicants; each mini-interview lasts 6-8 minutes, and in each short segment a new interviewer as

People everywhere are pre-equipped to navigate and understand culture, including the culture of medicine. If you have been a patient, if you have helped a family member or a friend when they were a patient, or if you have provided professional care for a patient, you have navigated medical culture.

Words matter. Speech acts. Utterances you may not even understand nevertheless can be powerful and cause harm due to misunderstanding. Yet, communication does not end with words alone. Bodies silently speak, inflecting a word in one way or another.

As qualitative researchers, we usually start our research solo. We submit grants alone, recruit alone, and spend time in the field alone. We then analyze our data and publish our papers. This solitude allows for depth.

Ethnographic fieldwork is an anthropological research method that involves interviews and participant-observation. It enables a researcher to spend in-depth time immersed in people’s daily lives to gain an understanding of a particular topic or issue.

Where do we see culture in everyday life? How does culture affect individuals, interactions, and systems? How can we shift culture to reduce suffering and promote well-being? MCL member Sarah Garrett is a cultural sociologist working to understand and induce culture change in maternity care.