Culture Clash

In class we have just finished reading the book titled "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman. After reading this book it has opened my eyes to the major crisis in health care in regards to dealing with those from different cultural backgrounds. In this case it was that of a Hmong family and their child who had severe epilepsy. I have worked in the health care field for over 5 years and have realized during that time there was an issue at times when dealing with those who may have a different culture or language. There were those in the clinic that you assumed understood the directions and just kind of shrugged when they left and hoped they did. There was the time when one of our female doctors had left for an emergency and a male doctor took her patients for the afternoon. There was a Somali woman that was scheduled and we had to wait for 45 minutes for her husband to arrive since in their culture a male doctor is not allowed to examine a female patient without a male family member present. At the time it just seemed like another strange thing that some patients from different cultures did. After reading this book I have a whole new outlook.

The parents of this young girl in the book had no clue how anything in the United States worked. They knew their own beliefs and cultural practices and when these clashed with the modern American medical system tragedy struck in many ways. The family did not understand what was going on when the invasive tests were being performed on her. They did not follow the orders for medications and treatments at home. They did not understand. To them epilepsy had occurred to their daughter when her soul was scared away. They had their own traditional Hmong ways of treating this, which were not going to cure her medically at all however not one medical staff ever asked or tried to understand where they were coming from. If this had happened there could have possibly been a compromise made. If there was some effort taken out to ensure a translator was available there may not have been so many misunderstandings. I could go on and on about what went wrong. The point being is that having people in our country of many different cultures and backgrounds is not going to change. There needs to be some sort of collaboration between the biomedical culture and that of the patient so that a desirable outcome is achieved by all. It may not be the ideal situation but at least everyone will be satisfied. Now I am a full advocate for the education of immigrants of the English language and the practices of our country, but we cannot expect people who are living here to completely do away with their own history and culture just because they now live in America.