Introduction: This essay will assess how cultural differences impacted Lia Lee's health in the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. It will point to several different times when cultural disagreements lead to distinct negative or positive effects on Lia’s health. It will also show how, despite overcoming almost all of the cultural disagreements amongst the Hmong and American doctors, Lia’s health still failed. A counter argument claiming that the doctors hold more responsibility than the Lee’s for Lia’s declining health is also provided and rebuked. The book was written over the course of several years, and Fadiman met with and built personal relationships with everyone in the book. Despite these connections, she manages to remain entirely unbiased when looking at the facts of Lia’s medical experiences, and allows you to fully understand her relationships with each person. This helps the reader to
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Western medicine taught students to not look at the person as a whole, but only as their disease (Fadiman 61). This helped doctors to avoid bias and practice the same standard of care for all patients, but this becomes a problem when the patient does not agree with western medicine. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a perfect example of a worst case scenario of this way of practicing medicine. The refusal of the American doctors to lower their standard of care so that Lia could receive any treatment hurt her significantly. But this was never a possibility, as Neil Ernst, Lia’s head doctor, “never seriously considered lowering his standard of care. His job, as he saw it, was was to practice good medicine; the Lees’ job was to comply” (Fadiman 79). Ernst felt that lowering his standard of care would be morally wrong, as he would never do that for an American family, (Fadiman
Western medicine taught students to not look at the person as a whole, but only as their disease (Fadiman 61). This helped doctors to avoid bias and practice the same standard of care for all patients, but this becomes a problem when the patient does not agree with western medicine. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a perfect example of a worst case scenario of this way of practicing medicine. The refusal of the American doctors to lower their standard of care so that Lia could receive any treatment hurt her significantly. But this was never a possibility, as Neil Ernst, Lia’s head doctor, “never seriously considered lowering his standard of care. His job, as he saw it, was was to practice good medicine; the Lees’ job was to comply” (Fadiman 79). Ernst felt that lowering his standard of care would be morally wrong, as he would never do that for an American family, (Fadiman