Foua and Nao Kao believed that the reason a Hmong person would fall ill, was because a “dab” had stole their soul. Doctors in Merceds didn’t understand this concept and that is why Lee’s felt many Hmong patients didn’t have good health outcomes. I got the impression that many of the individuals involved in the care of Lia and her family, put up a wall before they even entered the situation. There was a blatant lack of communication and understanding about the Hmong values and beliefs, which lead to ineffective care for Lia. Both the Lees and the American doctors were doing what they believed was best. Unfortunately, the cultural barriers that were created between these two groups didn’t allow for many positive outcomes. Preconceived notions …show more content…
Lia was prescribed numerous different medications, and these medications were changed multiple times. They came in many different forms, some needing to be measured or split to meet Lias prescribed dose. There were many posed barriers for the Lees when it came to medication administration. During the beginning, the doctors at MCMC didn’t recognized that the Lees may not be providing Lia with her prescribed medication. Her “first few prescriptions simply read “take as directed”’ (p.47). As mentioned earlier, the Hmong didn’t have the same concept of medication as Americans did. Neil and Peggy, felt that Nao Kao was being “deliberately deceitful” (p.47) and that Foua was “either very stupid or loonybird” (p.47). Although both Neil and Peggy and the Lees were trying to do what was best for Lia, there was a large cultural barrier that was inflicting this effort. Neil and Peggy acknowledged that they didn’t know how to communicate to the Lees, but made little effort to be sensitive to it this problem, nor did they try to understand. This situation led to sub therapeutic levels of medications in Lias blood, and a continuation of
In The Latehomecomer, by Kao Kalia Yang shares her story and the story of her family’s search for a home and identity. Her family’s story voices the story of the Hmong people and their plight. From every stage of their journey, from the mountainous jungles of Southeast Asia to the freezing winter of Minnesota, Yang and the Hmong were compelled to redefine their identity, willingly or unwillingly. While growing up, Yang’s parents would often ask her, “’What are you?’ and the right answer was always, ‘I am Hmong.’” (Yang, 1) For “Hmong” to be the right answer, then what does it mean to be “Hmong”? From the personal story shared by Yang, and the universal story of the Hmong people, the Hmong identity cannot be contained in
The Hmong people, an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam and Laos, greatly value their culture and traditions. The film “The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America” documents the seventeen year journey of the Hmong Shaman, Paja Thao and his family from the mountains of Laos to the heartland of America. This film shows the struggle of Paja Thao to maintain their 5000 year-old shamanic traditions as his children embrace the American culture. Moreover, the film shows that one of the major problems refugees like Paja Thao and his family face upon their arrival to the United States is conflict with the American medical system. Despite the dominant biomedical model of health, the film “The Split Horn” shows that
...mprovement in communication between the healthcare team responsible for Josie's care and through healthcare providers providing increased advocacy for patient safety. Moral courage did not play a role in Josie's medical care because the nurse administered the methadone to her despite her mother's wishes and had caused her a life-threatening complication. Pain, suffering, and compassion were all relevant to Josie's case. I learned a lot by reading Josie's Story which includes the importance of patient advocacy, communication between healthcare professionals, and the disclosure of adverse events. I was thoroughly enjoyed reading this story because it helped me to understand my role as a healthcare provider in advocating for patient safety and reducing medical errors. I plan to use everything that I learned from this story to implement into my future nursing practice.
Share the story of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures.
In today’s complex and high pace health systems, the power of the individual is entirely ineffective compared to that of a highly efficient and collaborative team. However, these professional healthcare organization systems can be tarnished by the presence of “tribes” among nurses, physicians, students, and etcetera. “Tribal culture” is literally a metaphor for groups that emphasize the exclusion of outside members into their “cliques.” In the movie “The Faces of Medical Error…from tears to transparency – The Story of Lewis Blackman”, there was a lack of communication and no transparency between different departments of the hospital. In Blackman’s case, the tribal culture led to the nurses failing to communicate vital health information to the physicians and patients, which eventually led to Blackmans death. So whether there are cliques of nurses, physicians, or even sub groups within each, the presence of them suppresses teamwork and collaboration. This will ultimately lead to compromised patient care, disgruntled staff, and high nurse turnover. Hook your themes here.
Culture, it can be defined as integrated pattern of knowledge, from values and behaviors to religions and ethics. Although, there are many different culture, there are some similarity between various culture. Vishal Boughen, he is currently around the age of 30-40 and is currently attending CSU, Fresno. The first time I met Vishal was in the fraternity that we are apart of. Vishal was born in Santa Clara, California, with an ethnic background of Asian-India. As a child, Vishal’s parents were strict with his behavior and actions. I, personally, can understand how Vishal felt as he was young, my parents were strict, but they were lenient with my social life. However, we grew up with different religion. Vishal was raised with a Roman Catholic
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is about the cross-cultural ethics in medicine. The book is about a small Hmong child named Lia Lee, who had epilepsy. Epilepsy is called, quag dab peg1 in the Hmong culture that translates to the spirit catches you and you fall down. In the Hmong culture this illness is sign of distinction and divinity, because most Hmong epileptics become shaman, or as the Hmong call them, txiv neeb2. These shamans are special people imbued with healing spirits, and are held to those having high morale character, so to Lia's parents, Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee, the disease was both a gift and a curse. The main question in this case was could Lia have survived if her parent's and the doctors overcame the miscommunication, cultural racism, and the western way of medicine.
All informants and sources are listed according to the chapters in which they contributed. Her major helpers, such as her interpreter, the Lees, the doctors who treated Lia, and a few others, have a special thanks from the author at the beginning of this section. Fadiman consulted a vast array of sources from both perspectives of Lia’s story. She also read nearly all of the available literature about the Hmong at that time, which admittedly was not abundant compared to now. Overall, those she spoke to seemed to be open and willing to talk about what had happened. The doctors freely admitted mistakes they made or may have made, and showed an interest in learning where they went wrong so that they could avoid any future
What would it be like to come to a country and not understand anything about its health care system? To many this would be a very daunting task. Unfortunately, this is the scenario that the Lee family has to deal with in the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. The Lee family, and the other thousands of Hmong immigrants, try to understand and navigate the complex and sometimes confusing health care system of the United States. As the book points out, the values and ideals of the Hmong culture and the United States health care system are not always the same and sometimes come into great conflict with each other. Lia Lee was unfortunately the person stuck in the middle of this great conflict.
In the book The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down, ethnocentrism can also be seen. Throughout the book the family and the doctors have different ideas of medicine/healing techniques are often disagreed on. It’s important for the doctor to see that biomedicine has its own intentions of saving patient through standard procedures and beliefs. Understanding those terms will shed some light on the culture of the patient, which has their own intentions, beliefs, and rules as well. Breaking down ethnocentrism to find an agreement is a good goal to accomplish in order have successful prognosis and healing. In addition, shedding the ethnocentrism will allow the doctors to see the different cultural beliefs and not judge right away. Although, some cultural remedies may not always work, it’s wrong for people to have the mindset of ethnocentrism without even considering their beliefs first.
...ation could have been improved between doctors and patients in simple ways. Interpreters were used and children went to school and helped translate for family members. These helped communication somewhat, but it wasn’t enough. There may not have been any other way to help, but some people tried to and doctors tried to be patient with the Hmong to understand what they wanted and to make them understand what was going on.
Native Americans have specific culture characteristics health care providers should have basic knowledge of to provide optimal health care. They received the title “Native” because they are indigenous to North Ame...
Patients have the right to autonomy as a principle of ethics. The physician should not have discussed cultural differences within ear shot of patients. One never knows what cultural beliefs a patient practices. Most western physicians do not have a full understanding of traditional healing to Native American patients unless they live in an area with a large population. “Healthcare professionals must consider the patients decision to implement the treatment plan and the appropriate authorization.”
Asian Values: Do they exist? On the face of it, the existence of ‘Asian Values’ seems illusory. After the humiliation of the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, the sounding of the death knell for the Asian-values debate seemed imminent.
One of my most memorable experiences in Asia was my trip to the doctor. I knew that my slight fever and scratchy throat could be contributed to lack of sleep. With a twelve-hour time difference, I had the worst jet lag that was possible. Yet, the Secretariat felt that I should go to the doctor, so off I went. Once we arrived I took one look at the building and decided that I felt much better. The office was a hole in the wall that practiced family medicine and surgery. It was in stark contrast to the gigantic, pristine medical facilities I was used to. There was a very long line to see the doctor so I took a seat next to a hacking baby and an anxious young mother. What happened next was the most distressing part of my adventure. Once my chaperone announced that I was part of the school program, the doctor took me right away. As I followed the nurse back I passed by people who had been sitting there for much longer. There was a man with b...