Monday, February 23, 2009

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

I am reading this book for Sociology of Illness and Medicine titled The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. It's a true story about a Hmong family's interaction with the American Health Care system though their epileptic daughter.
This book is one of the most intense books I've ever read and I am only on chapter nine. Not intense in a edge-of-my-seat kind of way, but an eye-opening experience kind of way. The severely simplified basis of the story is how the Hmong and American cultures clash in terms of health care. Even though both sides have good intentions for the child in question, sincerely wanting only the best for her, the cultural conflict induced frustrations, misunderstandings, and complications on both sides.
I remember getting agitated while reading one of the chapters. The parents of the epileptic child do not understand American medicine. In fact, they believe that the medicine is making her worse and suspect that the doctors are trying to kill her. They don't give her the medicine to make her better. Plus, they aren't proficient in English so they don't understand why or how to give her the prescribed dosages.
At the same time, one of the doctors sent in a recommendation to the government to remove the child from the parents' care so the medication could be properly administered. The parent's aren't abusing the child. They love her and care for her more than anything. They just don't believe in American health care. Yet the government opted to remove the child from their custody.
The thing is, you come to understand the actions of both sides. You see both perspectives. You find that you can't cast blame to anyone. They are all doing what they think is best for the little girl with severe epilepsy. That's what makes the situation so aggravating.

Reading this challenged the whole notion that American medicine is indisputable, that doctors are always right. The idea that even good intentions could have adverse effects is a difficult one to process. All this mixed in with the unbelievable difference between the Hmong community and the one I am used to. In a world so full of different cultures, different practices, and different people, there really is no right or wrong answer to anything. That concept is difficult to process.
I daresay, if this perception of "the other" is ever achieved, we'd be much closer to the whole "world peace" notion of things.


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