The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

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…

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a book that highlights the struggles between two cultures in healthcare. The lack of understanding and communication lead to a medical tragedy for Hmong child Lia Lee. The story starts with the Lee’s forced immigration to America and talks about Lia being born with epilepsy. As the story unfolds there are many challenges that both cultures face in attempt to provide the best care for Lia. The family has very strong religious and cultural beliefs…

medical school itself, if not more so. In medical school, one is at least told what is right and what is wrong. These black and white pleasantries do not translate to the grey, intricate “correctness” of medical ethics. Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, follows the story of a young Hmong girl named Lia Lee, her family, her doctors, and almost a decade of ethical dilemmas. The Hmong shamanistic medical traditions are extremely different to the American healthcare system.…

“The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down” is a story about a girl named Lia Lee who was diagnosed with epilepsy at a young age. There are multiple struggles in this book with cultural divide between the Hmong and the American medical systems. Lia and her parents, Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee, were refugees that had immigrated to the United States. Foua and Nao were very religious, and lived by the Hmong culture. Shortly after moving to California they had learned that Lia had epilepsy, and other…

Cultural Competence 101 The medical biographic novel” The spirit catches you and you fall down,” by Anne Fadiman is a magnificent time capsule of the experiences faced by the Hmong peoples during their migration to America. However amusing the novel was from a literary standpoint, the novel described many deeply discerning attributes of the American health care system and Social Work arena of that time period. Although this novel describes the journey of one peoples immigration to America this…

geographical areas. The society would have been a boring place without the give and take of culture. However, it is necessary for the society to adapt to the present culture and understand the norms and traditions behind the rituals. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a critically acclaimed book that Anne Fadiman has written about the struggle between Western medical doctors and providers and the traditional healing practices of the Hmong. In the book, differing cultural views come into…

sense. Worse, these deficiencies may also contribute to the medical neglact to a child. In addition, the features of religion beliefs and attitudes would be another reason which cause this problem. In the chapter five of the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Lia is without necessary medical treatment that her parents didn’t give her the appropriate doses of medications because they didn’t understand the direction or they were unwilling…

Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down addresses experiences and decisions we may all relate to in some degree through the narrative of a journalist. It offers a different perspective and insightfulness that has been used as an acceptable resource on teaching cultural competence. As a passive reader, our understanding of cultural competence has grown more humanistic, because we feel the healthcare provider’s frustration and their concerns becoming more salient, while we see how a…

solve medical issues based on patient diagnosis. You may find that the the technology and medical science provided by doctors can sometimes create new problems and can result in death. Many medical doctors do not believe that alternative medicine practices in various cultures coupled with technology and medical science produce better medical outcomes. Lia Lee was diagnosed with epilepsy as a baby in the book “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman. Fadiman explains how Lia’s…

everything in that person’s interests. Love and empathy for a person they are related to or got to know over time, make people stop thinking logically and they end up doing something unethical just to help their loved ones. Lees from The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down did their utmost to help Lia. They stopped thinking logically and tried everything in their power to save their daughter. The doctors also did their best to save her because it was their duty and also because the doctors…