Summary Of The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down By Anne Fadiman

Ethnomedicine has been historically defined as any healthcare system not present in the West; now, ethnomedicine is defined as the any cultural beliefs which surround healing in a community. The Hmong—an ethnic group located within present day Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand—have a particular system of ethnomedicine which is described as personalistic. Within a personalistic system, an active agent is the underlying cause of a disease—or etiology. Humans can be the cause of the disease as well as a number of non-human and supernatural agents. When Lia Lee began seizing at three months of age, her parents understood that the active agent which caused her epilepsy was a door slamming which caused her soul to fly from her body, an illness called quag

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down In the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman explores the cultural collision between the Hmong Lee family and their American doctors. Along with the culture clash, the social stigma against the Hmong family brings to light a lot of the systematic, moral, and ethical issues that can arise in our healthcare. Ultimately, the combination of the cultural clash in medical perspectives, the underlying social stigma, the inadequate treatment, and the miscommunication hindered the proper diagnosis and recovery of led to the demise of the Hmong child. However, many of the problems could have been easily avoided or resolved with more patience, objectivity, and most importantly, cultural competence.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman introduces the reader to the Hmong culture and to the Lee’s family experience with western medicine. Throughout the book it talks of the past interactions of the Hmong and Americans, showing reasoning why the Hmong already mistrust Americans and western medicine. Following World War II, the Hmong culture was rejected and ridiculed by the Chinese for not assimilating with their culture, causing many to move to the U.S. Upon arrival, they were still ridiculed, harassed, and violated. In the Hmong’s eyes, they deserved respect and welfare for their sacrifices in the war.

In the book “When the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” the Hmong trusted the shaman and other community members to heal Lia of epilepsy before they trust western doctors Epilepsy is a common neurological treatment that involved a general doctor and psychiatrist. In the novel there was a cultural clash between that of Hmong beliefs and western medicine, so much that the Hmong (Lia’s family) believed the medicine Lia was consuming was harming her soul. If Lia's doctors had took to the time to better understand why her parents wanted to limit the medication she took, they could have supported her parents efforts to seek spiritual and medical treatment while assuring the Lee's the medicine would do no harm to Lia’s soul. This is a classic example of the lack of cultural competency in psychiatric medicine that has led to the distrust of its treatments around the globe. Physicians are often so caught up in their course of treatment they forget to consider the

The tragedy that is the conflict of two cultures, American medicine and Hmong culture, two goods that lead to inevitable outcomes coupled with a distinct language barrier. This book crucially recounts a poignant and touching tragedy of an immigrant child whose origin is the war torn traditional life of Laos’ mountains and now her home is the Merced town in California. Two disparate cultures essentially collide resulting from language barriers, social customs, and religious beliefs. The recount by Anne Fadiman, an editor at the American scholar, sequentially recounts the clash between the American physicians and the Hmong family and thereby revealing how such differences can have an effect on the attitude towards healing and medicine. Review

During her stay the language barrier kept her from understanding her doctors but she was pleased when they brought her daughter, Lia Lee, to her. At only three months old, Lia became having what Western Medicine calls epilepsy. However, her family diagnosed her with quag dab peg which translates as “the sprit catches you and you fall down.” This became a huge cross-cultural misunderstanding.

This paper presents a 60 years old male of Native American descent named Tomas Smith, who goes to the emergency department in an attempt to find some resolutions for the medical complications his is experiencing. Prior to seeking medical attention, the patient sought physical and spiritual healing for the art of cupping done that was by his tribal leaders, when the patient did not achieve the results he was hoping for, he decides to use the help of modern medicine. The patient and wife are not enthusiastic about modern medicine because of cultural beliefs but Mrs. Smith was afraid that she would lose her husband and call the ambulance for medical

It is vital for health care providers to incorporate a person’s specific cultural elements to provide patients with the same ideal care that is provided to everyone (Kodjo, 2009). For example, many cultures have gender-specific views and those in that cultural group may desire care from a health care provider that is of the same gender as they are. Thus any future appointment with the patient in the primary care setting the health care providers would need to ensure the patient’s ideals are respected and the physician of the same gender is overseeing their care (Purnell, 2008). This should never be taken personally, but rather as step in the direction of providing the patient with the paramount

Having a sufficient knowledge of ones cultural needs, could lead to the understanding of effective healthcare of the people; in furtherance of the foregoing leading effective to quality healthcare services. Nurses are expected to practice in a way that is subtle to the sensitivity of culture of the service users, families, communities and team members (The Code, 2015, sec 7.3). Health services show the need for health care organisation to cultivate policies, standards and practices to offer culturally competent care. In becoming a cultural competent in the practice, Cross et al (1989) suggests five absolute necessary aspects that need to be considered. These are: valuing diversity, having the capacity for the cultural self-assessment, being conscious of the dynamics inherent when cultures interact, having an institutionalised cultural knowledge; and lastly, is having to develop an adaptations of services delivery reflecting an understanding of cultural diversity.

“The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anna Fadiman tells the story of Lia Lee, a Hmong child with epilepsy, whose life could have been different if only her family was caught up in western medicine. This book reveals the tragic struggles between a doctor and patient because of lack of communication.

Have you ever thought about how difficult it might be to go into a different country knowing absolutely nothing, not even language, and something horrific happened to you or anyone in your family?  Don’t you think you would feel so powerless, so helpless, so clueless? This happens commonly and it has never had any attention brought to it, at least not until 1998. Anne Fadiman wrote a book entitled, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. This demonstrated a collision of two complete opposite cultures, but they both have the same goal to help the child get better. Throughout this book many individuals were introduced both from the Hmong culture and then individuals from America. While reading the book two dynamic duos stood out to me, one

During it 's two hour runtime it depicts the both the hardships of pioneering in uncharted territories of medicine as well as the racial discrimination and segregation of America in the 40s. It is a mirror of both great capacity for good and progress as well as inhumane detachment from one another based on race such as with Vivian Thomas or even gender such as with Dr. Helen Taussig. The struggle to advance the discipline of medicine with all cost and at the same time bringing us closer together as human beings under the same purpose no matter the differences is worthy of discussing. The ethical dilemmas depicted on the movie can be divided in two categories; social and medical.

If nurses lack of understanding regarding community demographics and cultural differences, they can have unintentional bias, and stereotype patients due to a lack of awareness of the cultural demographics of the community they serve (Camphinha-Bacote, 2011). Cultural competence is the understanding of different cultures and how that impacts the provision of patient care. Cultural competence in nursing is defined as one willingness or the desire to understand a patient’s culture, the ability to learn about a defined cultures belief system, and to work effectively as a healthcare provider understanding the dynamics of the patient’s culture as it relates to their relationships and care (Kardong-Edgren et Al.,

(Universities Australia, 2011). The term cultural competence in health care refers to both the actions of the practitioner and their duty of care for the patient. This means that the care provided must be considered safe by the person receiving the care not the person providing it. (Victorian Government

There is the danger however, of romanticizing an extremely complex and demanding process, which as noted by Tshikwatamba (2003:36) despite their advantages in the workplace, differences are sometimes the source of considerable hostility and disagreements that cultural differences and religious beliefs have been the cause of much hostility and human suffering globally, is a matter of public knowledge. The clinical setting is but a small aspect of the world in which we live and work. Within the clinical environment, cultural differences can be found in both traditional cultures and the new cultural identities resulting from the socialisation and inculcation processes encountered in the professional schools that produce those who populate the