ipl-logo

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

1623 Words7 Pages

Anne Fadiman’s book, “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” tells the story of a young Hmong Child, Lia Lee, living in America. Lia has various medical ailments, including epilepsy, and there is a big cultural clash and confusion between the American medical staff and the Lee family’s beliefs. This book provides a holistic representation of ethics and ethical dilemmas, particularly relating to culture and respecting other cultures. This book gave me insight on what can really occur in complex ethical dilemmas with cultural differences present. The ethical dilemmas involved medical professionals, social workers, translators, and the family. It is crucial to be communicative and respectful as an educator. Having respect and working with different …show more content…

Part of cultural competency is “openness, appreciation, and respect for cultural differences” as well as “a view of intercultural interactions as learning opportunities” (Barrera, I., Corso, R., & Macpherson, T. D, pg. 1). 33, 2003). I believe that many of the medical professionals could have shown more respect to Lee’s and Hmong culture. I also believe that they should have used it as a learning experience. The Lee’s are not the only Hmong people in that area. If there is a specific culture that you may repeatedly encounter, taking time to learn about said culture will be extremely important and beneficial. Not only will it enable you to do your job as a professional better, but it will also help people of diverse backgrounds and cultures feel more welcome and understood by you. Reading this book and learning about Lia Lee and her family has given me a new perspective on ethical practice, dilemmas, and helped me learn about different cultures. First, I learned that it is critical to look at what you say and what you do from a holistic perspective. In chapter thirteen, Lia’s father, Nao Kao, signs paperwork after deciding to discharge

Show More
Related
1416 Words | 6 Pages

This book proved that in the end, neither way of thinking was completely wrong or completely right. Both the medical community and the Lees should have sought out ways in which they were able to better come to an agreement. For instance, the medical community could have tried to find a translator for the Lees which could have helped them both determine proper medical procedures. They also could have decided to learn more about the Hmong culture to have some understanding of where the Lees were coming from and avoid any barriers for them to better treat Lia. A big drawback that the medical community made was having a pessimistic outlook to Lia’s critical condition.

Read More
855 Words | 4 Pages

Anne Fadiman’s professional background is that of the Hmong lifestyle with its cultures against the entire American culture. In his background, there is miscommunication resulting from the refusal of the give medical dosages and other medicines due to the misunderstandings and mistrust. According to Barnsteiner , (p.71), there is also the inability of the US doctors to treat those people deeply rooted in the Hmong culture and they are also unable to learn that culture in the most helpful. Hmong is a refugee family in the US and that is where Ann Fadiman comes from. They come from provinces such as Laos and Sainyabuli which have tried to interact with the healthcare system in California and Merced.

Read More
1738 Words | 7 Pages

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a biographical work on a Hmong family living in California during the early 80’s. While the book is a true accounting of the Lee’s family attempt to secure quality healthcare for their epileptic daughter while traversing the American medical system and the Department of Children Services. The author, Anne Fadiman, takes the reader on a painstaking but necessary journey of Hmong history and culture and how they came to reside in Merced, California. As you learn more about the history of the Hmong people, you come to admire them as a strong and resilient people that have, as a people, overcome many challenges with respect to being conquered, nomadic and always having to start over.

Read More
1566 Words | 7 Pages

Using Anne Fadiman’s book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down I have created a cultural assessment of the Hmong people and their experiences with the American healthcare system. This small Southeast Asian minority known as the Hmong began moving to the United States towards the end of the Vietnam War. This brought a whole new set of challenges for the healthcare providers of the United States due to their cultural beliefs and native practices which made it difficult to perform certain forms of medicine. Doctors and nurses had to find different ways to treat these patients without violating their cultural beliefs or upsetting them.

Read More
540 Words | 3 Pages

The fear of the unknown aides in fueling the imagination with picturing the most lucrative reasons for how the Americans practice medicine. To those educated in the ways of the western world, the scenarios described by the Hmong are outrageous, the eating of internal organs and the selling of dead

Read More
968 Words | 4 Pages

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman is an analysis of Western medicine and traditional Hmong medicine in the treatment of a young child with severe epilepsy in Merced, California. The book also details Hmong culture, history, and their life as refugees in the United States. The majority of the Hmong populations, especially in central California where the book takes place, rely on welfare and this creates tensions with the other populations in the area. Her book is an eye opening introduction into the Hmong culture, the clash of traditional and western medicine, the discrimination of refugees, and the importance of cultural inclusivity.

Read More
1302 Words | 6 Pages

Cultural insensitivity is prevalent throughout the Hmong’s journey with the American health care system. Between 8 months and 4.5 years Lia was in the hospital seventeen times and made more the one hundred visits to ER and paediatric clinic. The health care system failed to attempt to understand the Hmong language and culture, which lead to the Hmong adapting their cultural traditions and familiarities to please

Read More
1983 Words | 8 Pages

In her brilliant and award-winning book, The Spirit Catches You & You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman skillfully demonstrates the cultural clash between a small county hospital in California, and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with sever epilepsy. Both Lia’s parents, as well as the doctors present, wanted what was best for her. However, the lack of understanding between them led to a tragedy. Fadiman did an outstanding job at demonstrating that cultural understanding is essential but lacking in the modern biomedical system. She successfully illustrated the way hospital bureaucracy often detracts from the desired end results of helping patients get well according to their definitions as well.

Read More
614 Words | 3 Pages

Another critical element is the difference of the two culture in addressing illness. The Hmongs have a Shaman who comes in their home, spends time with the family and the patient. Shamans treat their patient’s spirit as well as the body and can make an immediate diagnosis. The American medical system very different in so many aspects that Fouya and Nao Lee is having a difficult time accepting

Read More
1648 Words | 7 Pages

In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall down, Anne Fadiman reflected on ways in which cultural dissonance can have detrimental consequences for those who are caught in the midst of two cultures. In this influential story, the cultural and language barriers between Lia Lee’s family and her doctors caused Lia’s life to be negatively impacted due to improper diagnosis and treatment. The Lees preferred traditional and spiritual treatment that clearly differed from the doctors’ Westernized treatment. Through a constant battle between proper treatment and the Lee parent’s compliance, this caused Lia to live in a persistent vegetative state for the majority of her life. The language barrier that the Lee’s faced at Merced hospital was discouraging,

Read More
1960 Words | 8 Pages

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.

Read More
674 Words | 3 Pages

The US medical doctors could not open their eyes to the Hmong culture and the Lees could not understand their Western Medicine. The Hmong believed that when Lia’s older sister slammed the door at Lia’s hu plig ceremony which

Read More
545 Words | 3 Pages

The doctors diagnose Lia to have epilepsy caused by the misfiring of neurons in the brain. In contrast, Lia’s parents blame the banging of a door loudly or falling off a swing to have caused the soul to have left the body and possibly be captured by a malicious spirit called a daab. However, it is intriguing that the physicians determine the prognosis of epilepsy to disadvantageous to the development of Lia, while her Hmong parents see this as a call to become a txiv neeb, a Hmong healer. Nonetheless, the most significant contrast is illustrated in the different treatments prescribed by the doctors, who constantly tried to adjust medication to control the seizures and the parents, who believed a combination of some medicine, with the sacrifice of an animal and the healing ceremony by a txiv neeb was what was necessary to improve Lia’s health. Evidently such differences in opinion, aided by difficulties in communication due to a language barrier, led to conflicts between Lia’s physicians and parents that ultimately compromised her level of

Read More
1987 Words | 8 Pages

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.

Read More
1336 Words | 6 Pages

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).

Read More

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

Open Document