Medical Beliefs of the Hmong People Depicted in the Book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

For i... ... middle of paper ... ..., p.261) With this knowledge of the culture that one works in, the health care worker can better see the differences with the cultures of the patients that they are taking care of. Hopefully this understanding will lead to less conflict and better healing. In this book Anne Fadiman portrayed the ethnocentricity of the American culture, in which people of other cultures are judged based on the standard of American customs and tradition. This means that people are very skeptical about the things that they do not understand. A lot can be learned from the interactions that took place between the Western United States health care system and the more traditional Hmong culture.

A practice commonly used in the medical field, “benevolent deception” is the act of physicians suppressing information about diagnoses in hopes of not causing patients emotional turmoil (Skloot 63). Benevolent deception is a contentious subject because when used, the bioethical principles of respect for autonomy and beneficence can conflict with each other. Respect for autonomy is when physicians acknowledge their patients’ abilities to make voluntary decisions on their own regarding their health care (McCormick 4). Meanwhile, beneficence is the duty of doctors to be of a benefit to patients, while also taking measures to prevent and remove harm from them (McCormick 5). When giving patients diagnoses, physicians need to follow these doctrines by creating a balance between telling the truth and providing hope, which is why some may mistakenly turn to benevolent deception as the answer.

This allows the physician be certain that after a diagnosis, the child will be less likely to be psychologically traumatized. ... ... middle of paper ... ...However, this just worsens the situation because the patient may unknowingly transmit the disease to others. To conclude, I think that physicians should tell the truth directly to the patient, even against family requests. Yes, there are some exceptions, of which are associated to the patients’ age, disease, and religious beliefs that makes doctors respect family wishes.

It was missed that the family was close and intimate when trying to understand their concern for seeing their father decline. It was also missed that they believe in dying from natural causes and not direct action (Andrews & Boyle, 2016). I notice that as a health care team we sometimes dismiss feelings and just look at the science and how to fix things. Define Culturally Congruent Care Culturally congruent care is very important in healthcare. If it is incorporated correctly it can avoid conflicts and deliver better health outcomes.

This is particularly true when dealing with patients and their families. In the health care setting when a sender of a message conveys their message rather verbally, or written it is more than likely important information; so you do not want your message to get loss or be interpreted incorrectly. That is why it is best to be clear and concise. It is important to be concise with the information being communicated making sure to only transmit significant details when communicating with staff. It is key for the message to be centered on the patient so either the sender or receiver becomes confused to the details which might lead to a mistake.

With practice, I hope to improve on these aspects and utilize supportive comments to demonstrate empathy and obtain a thorough patient interview. These features of a patient interview are essential as the patient is providing the necessary information to form an accurate diagnosis.

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.

The naturopathic doctor aims to gather information about overall health, daily habits, nutrition, stress levels, sleep habits and so forth. Mental and spiritual health are just as important as physical health. According to Spar and Muñoz “spirituality is intimately related to health, wholeness, and well-being” (68). Because of this, the naturopath will... ... middle of paper ... ...eatment, the support or rejection of the medical profession is ultimately less important than the results achieved by first-hand experience. In fact, many patients that seek alternative or complementary treatments do so because traditional medicine could not give them the results they want.

Believing that patients will misunderstand the diagnosis, or assuming that they won’t want to know are not valid reasons for keeping information from the person. Communication is important in a medical setting, and is especially important when talking about the health of an individual. With relevant, appropriate and humanistic communication, telling a patient their diagnosis can and should be done in a caring way.

A practice commonly used in the medical field, “benevolent deception” is the act of physicians suppressing information about diagnoses in hopes of not causing patients emotional turmoil (Skloot 63). Benevolent deception is a contentious subject because when used, the bioethical principles of respect for autonomy and beneficence can conflict with each other. Respect for autonomy is the act of physicians acknowledging their patients’ abilities to make voluntary decisions on their own regarding their health care, while beneficence is the duty of doctors to help patients and remove harm from them (McCormick 4-5) When giving patients diagnoses, physicians are morally obliged to try to follow these doctrines, which is why some may mistakenly use benevolent deception because of how it honors the principle of beneficence. Due to the assumption that patients would not want to hear devastating news relating to their health, benevolent deception is deliberately used by numerous medical doctors in attempts to not cause emotional harm to a patient (Higgs 8). However, in most medical situations, benevolent deception is not permissible because the patients’ given right to autonomy is disrespected by doctors.