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The future of medical anthropology
The future of medical anthropology
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More handpicked essays just for you.
The future of medical anthropology
The future of medical anthropology
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Recommended: The future of medical anthropology
The Case of Paul Mills and Dr. Nancy Morrison Dr. Nancy Morrison was arrested for first-degree murder in 1996 for administering a shot of potassium chloride to her terminally ill patient Paul Mills in hope to hasten his death. Prior to his death, Paul Mills had undergone multiple operations including one to remove a part of his esophageal due to cancer, after each operations, he was left weaker and more dependent on hospital care and machines to be kept alive. He was in serious pain, suffering from being in a state of constant suffering, so Paul Mills requested to be allowed to die. A DNR was issued and his family decided to take him off life support. Both himself and his family agreed to the cessation of life support, and there was clear evidence that he will not recover.
‘The spirit catches you and you fall down’ was published in 2012 by essayist and reporter Anne Fadiman. This introductory book review analyzes the way in which different cultures perceive illnesses and diseases. It focuses on the story of the Lees a Hmong family, who moved to the United States and experiences difficulties with language, culture and biomedicine method of healing, which contradict to Hmong’s way of healing. The chapters describe the differences between the ways childbirth is conducted in Hmong society compared to the western society. As well as the struggle the Lees family has with the cultural differences in diagnoses and treatment of their ill daughter.
In the documentary, “The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America,” portrays the journey of an immigrant Hmong family battling to maintain their cultural traditions alive in the United States. In the Hmong culture, it is believed that every individual has seven souls and if they have an illness, for example sickness, it means that their soul has departed or taken by evil spirits. Hmong people believe in Shamans, who are gifted and respected people who can make contact with their ancestors and return the lost souls of people. In this documentary, the main character Paja Thao is a shaman who is challenged by American customs to keep his cultural Hmong traditions alive and pass it down to his children. Paja becomes sick because he feels like his children don’t care about the Hmong tradition anymore because they don’t participate in his rituals and realizes his children have assimilated to the American culture.
In Anne Fadiman’s, A Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, there’s a conflicting battle going on between cultures. While it might never be specifically stated, Anne Fadiman attempts to convey a neutral understanding to her readers of the Hmong beliefs and culture alongside of the culture of biomedicine western society is mostly familiar with. While the Hmong beliefs and practices in medicine are taboo to western society, readers gradually see that Hmong medicine is just as equal or more powerful than biomedicine that we’re so familiar with. It’s an important concept to understand in this book is that the doctors are there to treat Lia’s disease, not precisely concerned with Lia as a person. Hmong medicine seems to be more related to in helping
One of the recurring themes of Anne Fadiman’s novel The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is the cultural unawareness that is present, not only the American perspective, but the Hmong perspective as well. This is evident in the recountment of a Hmong American that returns to visit Ban Vinai, a refugee camp in Thailand, after establishing herself in the United States. Most of the book is written with a focus on the Western doctors lacking understanding of Hmong language, customs and culture which in turn made it difficult for them to treat patients such as Lia. They struggled to explain procedures, while practical to them, appeared harmful and life-threating to the Hmong.
The chapter opens with a Sioux sweat lodge ceremony. Dennis Linn wants you to imagine the physical and emotional feelings, which emanate from the ceremony. The medicine man thanks God for all creatures including man. Those in the ceremony are thankful to God and ask forgiveness of all those they have hurt and extend forgiveness to those who have hurt them. The author thought it was a primitive superstition.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, explores cultural competence, ethics in medicine, and the provision of culturally competent health care in the United States by following a family of Hmong culture in their struggles with mainstream U.S. society and healthcare. Fadiman has implemented her studies to highlight the differences between Hmong and Western practices and perspectives on health care, illness, spirituality, and the body. Through her extensive research, Fadiman is able to express cultural differences and the impact ignoring this crucial piece can have. Healthcare in the U.S. is described as the best in the world, but Fadiman is able to highlight the weaknesses this healthcare system has in regards to culturally
Over the progression of the book the view points and relationships between the Lees and the doctors develops slightly. The medical staff was not prepared with a translator or a cultural understanding of the Hmong and how their beliefs would not match up with their medical practices. “Not only do the Hmong fail resoundingly to improve the payer mix- more than eighty percent are on Medi-Cal- but they have proved even more costly than other indigent patients, because they generally require more time and attention, and because there are so many of them that MCMC has to hire bilingual staff members to mediate between patients and providers” (Fadiman 25). This theme in the story was immensely eye opening for all of the cultural gaps that exist throughout the United States. The solution to this problem is for both sides standing on opposite sides of the gap to take the time to bridge the gap together.
Transparency in research and ethical treatment of human subject living or deceased is a necessity to maintain the integrity of research3. The continuation of research is essential to medical progress and improving health outcomes4. However, it is important for future healthcare providers and researchers to understand the historically rooted mistrust in African Americans when a patient is non-compliant or unwilling to agree to a procedure. It is imperative that time is taken to understand a patient’s perspective and answer any of the questions regarding a treatment because this encounter is an opportunity to build trust in you as a provider and rebuild trust in the health care system as a whole. In order to increase the participation of minority groups in research, awareness, education, community engagement and patience are necessary to repair historical
Horace Miner, a American Anthropologist wrote an academic essay titled “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema.” In this article Miner described some of the bizarre rituals and practices of the “Nacirema” which the reader comes to find out that he is talking about North Americans. The way Miner goes into detail about how these people live makes them seem foreign. Thus making the norm for an American lifestyle seem odd because the certain type of lingo Miner uses to make this “tribe” more exotic then the actually are. His point in doing this is to show the reader how obnoxious anthropologist can be when they are explain a different culture.
Family and group solidarity are important to the Hmong, yet they were forced to split apart during their journey to America. The Hmong also partook in ceremonies, dances, and sacrifices that were important to them and their religion, however, the doctors and other people were wary of these practices and didn’t condone them, especially when it came to patients such as Lia Lee. Lee’s doctors were constantly giving her shots, medicine, and feeding her through tubes. Her parents didn’t approve of this at all and thought that the medicines they were giving her was what was killing her.
Book Review: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Tim Merlino Drexel University November 2017 The patient-doctor relationship recognizes transference affects as a bi-directional relationship which affects the way a health care provider treats a patient and the way the patient responds to treatment (Zinn, 1990). Fadiman’s book examines different problems in the culture of American medicine by highlighting a tragedy centered around a Hmong immigrant family and their sick child, Lia, in California (Fadiman, 2012). The story also highlights some important lessons to be learned by the American health care system to avoid future incidents like described by Fadiman and to ultimately apply cultural competency in public health (Fadiman, 2012).
The article shows not only how tough it is for an ethnographer to get away from his own beliefs, but it also gives us an example of how personal interpretations can when doing fieldwork. Even though, Lee had been living with the Bushmen for 3 years and knew pretty much every situation concerning social conflicts, yet he didn`t have a clue about their hunting traditions as well as their manner of enforcing humility among them. In the ! Kung Bushmen society, your hard work is appreciated but behind closed doors and is not easily shown to you. Now that I`m also engaging in the daily life of different culture, I`m starting to understand a bit more than I used to
Something called “Medicine Men and Women” are spiritual leaders who use herbs to heal sick people. It’s very important to have spiritual leaders because they are the one’s to provide for the sickness of people, they play a huge role in people's lives so that’s why they're so important to the Native Americans religion. Now in closing, I have learned a lot of new things that I have never seen or heard of
Furthermore, this essay looks into the midwifery partnership and the relevance of Nga Maia Maori Midwives and the Treaty of Waitangi 1840, and its underpinnings in a midwifery context. Pregnancy is a unique intimate relationship between