Report from Chapters 6 & 16 in Ann Fadiman’s “The Spirit Catches and You Fall Down”
Chapter 6: high velocity transcortical lead therapy
Hmong in America present challenges in the handling of cross-cultural medicine. At the Merced Community Medical Center (MCMC) the Hmong immigrants feel that their cultural practices and beliefs, such as women exposing themselves to doctors during medical examinations, are not right but they feel obliged by the local systems. There is a legal implication on the rights of patients in dealing with doctors since the doctors seem to disregard the rights their patients have to select treatment. For instance the issue of the lady who had blisters in her mouth and instead of doctors honoring her request for pain relieving medication, the doctors ignored her and recommended surgery.
Medical implications
The Hmong immigrants fear that the doctors can send them to jail for refusing treatment. However, these fears put the health of the Hmong at risk of deterioration. There are allegations that the student doctors at MCMC “just want to experiment on the poor people and they kill the poor people” (Fadiman 73). However, these allegations, misconceptions and strong traditional practices caused the Hmong more problems because they presented more prevalence of diseases such as hepatitis B, anemia, diabetes, Tuberculosis among others.
The difficulties that the Hmong patients pose to doctors caused the doctors to go for the high velocity transcortical lead therapy or “being shot in the head” (Fadiman 71). This is a comical way to elaborate the medical challenges that the Hmong pose. Their traditional treatments such as use of herbs, making markings on the body and use of nonconventional medicines and treatment procedures contradicts the conventional medical practices of the Western world. Medical personnel are challenged to learn cross cultural medicine to help them handle cultures such as the Hmong’s. Dan Murphy is a good example of how studying cross-cultural medicine can help. Educated and Americanized people access the best medical care
Implications for medical practice
There are huge challenges for the medical practice because doctors have to treat the Hmong while adhering to the medical ethics. There are huge challenges in language barrier which hinders practice since it is hard for doctors to tell patients where they are sick and how they are going to treat them. For instance, when the Hmong medical glossary was made to ease medical practice, the “Hmong translation for “parasite” is a twenty four word long phrase” (Fadiman 80).
There are also misunderstandings in the way doctors are suppers to dress, talk and handle people of different ages and genders when dealing with the Hmong and this poses a huge challenge in medical practice. There is lack of assurance that the Hmong follow medical prescriptions and all these issues complicated medical practice in handling members of that community.
Chapter 16: Why did they pick Merced?
Legal implications
Under US laws there are provisions for the non-inclusion of medicines with food items and getting the Hmong to follow such laws would come with many legal battles. The Hmong complain that Americans forces them to leave Thailand, Vietnam and Laos their native homes during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s. This introduces a legal implication where the US had to host the Hmong as refugees whose displacement the US government took part.
The legal implications of having the Hmong break laws regarding drugs as well as their game and fish violations is a major legal issue because they act in adherence to their culture while disregarding the laws. For instance, the Hmong “poached bass from the San Luis Reservoir with 1,550-foot setlines and also drove deer into ambushes” (Fadiman 256).
Medical implications
There combination of medicines used by the Hmong such as mentholated tape, sticky ointments for treating bruises, camphor balm for drawing out fevers with food items such as rice spelt a complicated procedure of ensuring medical issues are followed by the Hmong (Fadiman 243). The Hmong settled in Merced in the late 1970s following in the footsteps of Dang Moua and with their settlement came many legal and economic challenges as the county and state governments struggled for the Hmong’s welfare in schools, hospitals, and other social amenities. The Hmong community in the US complicated the government’s efforts in offering universal healthcare. The community has held on to traditions, cultures and practices that undermine cultural health. Instead of the community adapting to the systems, there are issues on high childbirth which disorganizes plans for good medical care.
Implications for medical practice
The implications for medical practice include provision of primary and secondary care to many people whose cultural practices in regard to medicine conflicts with the local healthcare systems. The Hmong lied about numerous things such as age because they had heard that old people were undesirable in the US. They also lied to doctors in order to get disability benefits and all the inaccuracies that the Hmong spread risked the medical practices and policies on their community. The government would not manage to plan proper healthcare for the Hmong refugees.
Works Cited
Fadiman Ann “The Spirit Catches and You Fall Down” web 21 July 2016 http://anthropology.msu.edu/anp370-us15/files/2015/05/The-Spirit-Catches-You-and- You-Anne-Fadiman.pdf
