While Anne Fadiman rightly asserts in her novel The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures that the tragedy of Lia Lee, a Hmong bounded epileptic child of Laos natives, was a result of cross-cultural misunderstanding; I feel that she does not sufficiently explore the role of language and translation serving as factors of psychosocial and cultural aspects of medical diagnosis and the overall confrontation of foreign patients with the American medical system. As described by Janelle S. Taylor, culture is the process of making meaning and social interactions. The embodiment of cross-cultural meaning can be articulated through the intertwining of language, the duality of vocal
…show more content…
Fadiman in her novel included an anecdote that reveals the secret to prevent the formation of a dichotomy of medical foreigncy, either be it the foreigncy of a doctor 's medical diagnosis or the foreigncy of a patient background. According to ethnographer Conquergood, who at the time was working at a refugee camp in Ban Vinai, “considered his relationship with the Hmong to be a form of barter and invigorating dialogue, with neither side dominating.” He stated that Western practitioners failed with foreign patients due to doctors believing they held all knowledge rather than viewing the relationship as mutual learning. I completely agree with Conquergood 's philosophy and the means of viewing the medical practice as a cultural compromise that requires an interactive exchange of information. Similar to the means that patients in Ban Vinai perhaps felt more confident and willing to conform to Western medicine with Conquergood’s presence, my own mother resonates with such an experience. My mother personally feels that the clinics located within latino neighborhoods are better fitted for her needs, regardless of having less access to high end resources and equipment, only because she feels more comfortable with the doctor and nurses that understand her …show more content…
Contrary to Conquergood’s uplifting philosophy on the quintessential needs to acknowledge patients realities, Fadiman in the late chapters of the novel notes a epidemiologist own thoughts on the issue of clashing cultures “for better or for worse, Western medicine is one-sided. Until the culture of medicine changes, it may be difficult for doctors having gone through rigorous academic study to take their reality as only a view, not reality itself…” I found this quote to be very dramatic in the sense that it brings to light the flaws within American medical schools. The culture the colleague mentions, I believe, does have the capability to change given the assumptions that medical school students are not too busy worrying about residency and completing course prerequisites, instead rather taking the time to translate the cultural suffering of various societies into their own studies. Courses lacking integration of anthropology and ethnography are the reasons why the next generations of doctors may be lacking essential concepts of cultural language and the manners which to engage and communicate with patients without the assertive barrier of medical knowledge as a dominating means to control a
Fadiman in her novel included an anecdote that reveals the secret to prevent the formation of a dichotomy of medical foreigncy, either be it the foreigncy of a doctor 's medical diagnosis or the foreigncy of a patient background. According to ethnographer Conquergood, who at the time was working at a refugee camp in Ban Vinai, “considered his relationship with the Hmong to be a form of barter and invigorating dialogue, with neither side dominating.” He stated that Western practitioners failed with foreign patients due to doctors believing they held all knowledge rather than viewing the relationship as mutual learning. I completely agree with Conquergood 's philosophy and the means of viewing the medical practice as a cultural compromise that requires an interactive exchange of information. Similar to the means that patients in Ban Vinai perhaps felt more confident and willing to conform to Western medicine with Conquergood’s presence, my own mother resonates with such an experience. My mother personally feels that the clinics located within latino neighborhoods are better fitted for her needs, regardless of having less access to high end resources and equipment, only because she feels more comfortable with the doctor and nurses that understand her …show more content…
Contrary to Conquergood’s uplifting philosophy on the quintessential needs to acknowledge patients realities, Fadiman in the late chapters of the novel notes a epidemiologist own thoughts on the issue of clashing cultures “for better or for worse, Western medicine is one-sided. Until the culture of medicine changes, it may be difficult for doctors having gone through rigorous academic study to take their reality as only a view, not reality itself…” I found this quote to be very dramatic in the sense that it brings to light the flaws within American medical schools. The culture the colleague mentions, I believe, does have the capability to change given the assumptions that medical school students are not too busy worrying about residency and completing course prerequisites, instead rather taking the time to translate the cultural suffering of various societies into their own studies. Courses lacking integration of anthropology and ethnography are the reasons why the next generations of doctors may be lacking essential concepts of cultural language and the manners which to engage and communicate with patients without the assertive barrier of medical knowledge as a dominating means to control a