The Hmong Healing Methods

In the story about Lia Lee, her American Doctors, and her Hmong parents. American Doctors and nurses at that time thought that their methods for evaluating and resolving medical problems was the only way and they refused to see how other people from different parts of the world practice medicine and healing. The Hmong had healing methods that varied from shamanism, dermal treatments, and herbs. Each method used depended on the problem the patient was having. The American doctors had healing methods that involved doing multiple test and samples such as blood, urine, or feces samples followed by injection of chemicals, prescriptions of pills, or sometimes even surgery. These two completely different methods caused a cultural clash between these …show more content…
In Lia’s case, her parents felt that the doctors ended up doing more damage to Lia health issue rather than helping. Many Hmong people also share this viewpoint, they do not like when doctors draw blood from them, give them anesthesia, or perform surgery on them. When doctors take repeated blood samples from their Hmong patients they feel as if they are causing more damage because the Hmong believe that the human body has a set amount of blood within their system and is unable to replenish more. The Hmong believe repeated blood samples done by doctors could lead to fatal results especially among younger Hmong children. The reason for the Hmong disapproval of anesthesia is because they believe that when their body is unconscious their soul is wandering and could potentially be taken by soul taking dab resulting in an illness or death. Surgery is also frowned upon by the Hmong because in their culture if the human body is cut open or altered in some type of way or form such as having body part removed then this causes a condition known as perpetual imbalance. This Hmong state that this causes the person to become frequently ill and during the next reincarnation they will be born with missing body parts. So just like the American doctors have their judgments on the Hmong people, the Hmong people also have their judgments toward American doctors …show more content…
They felt as if they were betrayed by the United States because of many acts that were done to them. Some of these acts of “betrayal” were done during the war when the Hmong fought for the Americans and in return they were denied an air rescue, not automatically admitted into the Unites states, and when they finally obtained entry into the United States they did not qualify for veteran benefits. Hmong war fighters thought they deserved those benefits and people would criticize them for these opinions. The Hmong were in need of this assistance since not many of them could obtain jobs since they required the person to have knowledge of the English language. With their troubles for finding jobs and also the daily discrimination they dealt with it cause them to suffer from depression, hostility and many other problems which in return, kept causing their other problem with the United States government to grow much worse. The Hmong wanted to go back