A person’s health literacy is determined by that person’s capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make the appropriate health decisions. Two of the biggest influences that can determine a person’s health literacy are culture and education. In “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman and “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, there are many displays of how the roles of culture and education impact the lives of these two ethnic families.
In “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” the effects of culture and education has an adverse effect on Lia Lee’s, the central character, life. First off, in an area where there were 12,000 Hmong residents, the hospital …show more content…
Due to this miscommunication Lia’s parents were seen as noncompliant and they were stripped of custody of their child. If the medical professionals had been properly educated and trained about the Hmong culture, they would be able to understand their patient’s needs on a deeper level and therefore been able to treat them more effectively. They would have realized that Lia’s parents were not being neglectful towards their child; their cultural beliefs of medicine just did not match up. In addition if the cultures had been better understood, the doctors would have been able to start treating Lia earlier. This means that she could have been spared from some of the mental damage that her delayed treatment caused.
The medical community also impacted Henrietta Lacks, the central character in the novel “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, negatively during the extent of her treatment at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. Henrietta was a poor Black tobacco farmer from Virginia. The majority of her story takes place in the late 1940s to the early 1950s, which is at the height of segregation and racism in American history. “Doctors knew best, and most patients didn’t question that. Especially black patients in public wards. This was 1951 in Baltimore, segregation was law, and it was understood that black people didn’t question white people’s professional judgment. …show more content…
If the Lia Lee family had a greater understanding of Western medicine, they would be able to comprehend the treatment that their daughter was going through, and they would also have been able to give more input into the medical decisions. If they had a higher level of education and spoke English fluently, this would have also helped them communicate with the doctors and nurses throughout the entire process of Lia’s epilepsy. Therefore the Hmong could also benefit from assimilating more into Western culture and understanding Western medicine. Henrietta would have been able to better grasp what her child Elise was going through, but it should be noted that at that time medicine also had not made great strides in treating mental illnesses. With a higher education she would have been able to understand her body more and ask the doctors more questions about her diagnosis and prognosis. For instance, questions specifically relating to her fertility, as having another child was very important to her. If she had a higher education she would have probably known to ask these questions and she might have chose the option to forego or delay the radiation to have another child. Unfortunately she was not afforded this option. A patient’s ability to not only know, but comprehend their medical situation is directly based off of their education. The less we
In “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” the effects of culture and education has an adverse effect on Lia Lee’s, the central character, life. First off, in an area where there were 12,000 Hmong residents, the hospital …show more content…
Due to this miscommunication Lia’s parents were seen as noncompliant and they were stripped of custody of their child. If the medical professionals had been properly educated and trained about the Hmong culture, they would be able to understand their patient’s needs on a deeper level and therefore been able to treat them more effectively. They would have realized that Lia’s parents were not being neglectful towards their child; their cultural beliefs of medicine just did not match up. In addition if the cultures had been better understood, the doctors would have been able to start treating Lia earlier. This means that she could have been spared from some of the mental damage that her delayed treatment caused.
The medical community also impacted Henrietta Lacks, the central character in the novel “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, negatively during the extent of her treatment at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. Henrietta was a poor Black tobacco farmer from Virginia. The majority of her story takes place in the late 1940s to the early 1950s, which is at the height of segregation and racism in American history. “Doctors knew best, and most patients didn’t question that. Especially black patients in public wards. This was 1951 in Baltimore, segregation was law, and it was understood that black people didn’t question white people’s professional judgment. …show more content…
If the Lia Lee family had a greater understanding of Western medicine, they would be able to comprehend the treatment that their daughter was going through, and they would also have been able to give more input into the medical decisions. If they had a higher level of education and spoke English fluently, this would have also helped them communicate with the doctors and nurses throughout the entire process of Lia’s epilepsy. Therefore the Hmong could also benefit from assimilating more into Western culture and understanding Western medicine. Henrietta would have been able to better grasp what her child Elise was going through, but it should be noted that at that time medicine also had not made great strides in treating mental illnesses. With a higher education she would have been able to understand her body more and ask the doctors more questions about her diagnosis and prognosis. For instance, questions specifically relating to her fertility, as having another child was very important to her. If she had a higher education she would have probably known to ask these questions and she might have chose the option to forego or delay the radiation to have another child. Unfortunately she was not afforded this option. A patient’s ability to not only know, but comprehend their medical situation is directly based off of their education. The less we