Spirit Catches You Analysis

Spirit Catches You Final reflective paper

The book presented the true-life story describing the critical role culture and healthcare play in the society. The book also described the way of life of the Hmong. Culture is a very important part of the normal life of everyone. Culture has an influence in the way we interact with people routinely during our everyday lives. Cultural misunderstanding is experienced most of the time when it comes to the relationship we have with our physicians. The biggest concern is how physicians can accept that everyone is made up differently and culture determines most of that. Knowing and engaging the patient will help build a great therapeutic relationship. If Lia’s parents had gotten an interpreter would the situation have been different? Would she have lived a winsome …show more content…
Aside this, Lia’s parents had a misunderstanding with the doctors about the way they were touching her, giving her medications, and treating her. The misunderstanding stems from the culture differences between the lee’s and American physicians. The American physicians had some “reputation” as been “brain eaters” by the Hmong and because of that the Lee’s had some perceptions about the way they treat their patients. As this was going on, the Hmong belief was that as a person experiences grand mal seizure, he or she is communicating with the spiritual world. He or she becomes an interceder between the world of living and the world of the spirits: a place where dead spirits duel after their life on earth. The spirits duel till they are reincarnated back onto earth. Such a person was called a shaman. Being a shaman is a blessing according to the Hmong and taken with great pride among the people. Lia’s parents accepted that fate and took pride in it initially until they witnessed what that could do to Lia. They were faced with many