MPR’s Lorna Benson profiles Pua Xiong, a first-year resident who works at St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul. Xiong describes how her quest for a medical degree has forced her to confront a multitude of cultural barriers.
Female doctors are no longer an unusual sight in U.S. hospitals and clinics. In fact, in 1996, twenty percent of all physicians in Minnesota are women. But for some immigrant ethnic groups the percentage is much lower. For example, in the Hmong community there are only three women doctors in the nation.