The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - Book Report/Review Example

The health care providers should be advised to read this book as it may help them to better understand the health care procedure especially regarding the ethnic patients. Since the United States is gradually diversifying culturally, it creates a major disparity among the local nationals and the immigrants and refugees from other part of the globe who prefer to preserve their religious, linguistic and cultural traditions. This further increases the fissure in communication owing to multiplicity of incorporated cultures and languages.

It is recorded that more than 100,000 Hmong refugees have settled in the United States starting from the late 1970's when they first started arriving from Laos. [as cited by Warner and Mochel] Fadiman critically analyzes the situation of Lia Lee's family and the health care personals, highlighting the importance of interaction in order to achieve success in culturally sensitive medical treatments and other disciples. The cultural distance between the hospital staff and Lia Lee's parents created tribulations in her treatment which ended in grave results.

The writer proficiently elucidates the Western medicinal culture and the religious customs of the Hmong people clearly drawing the difference between the two. However she states that thriving interactive communication may help the cultural differences to disappear in the future. Particularly in the diet and nutrition disciple, the specialist needs to be well accustomed to other cultural and linguistic customs to achieve a better communiqu with minority patients keeping in regard their traditional eating practices and life styles.2. Discuss the delivery of cultural competent healthcare and point out several issues in your book that may have interfered with recognizing the cultural issues and responding in a culturally sensitive way.

The traditional health care providers practice a more scientific approach as compared to the non- traditional care givers. They hold segmented views about culturally diverse patients and as a result they lack the proper care that is their right to attain. Each culture is considered to be sacred by its believers; hence they don't tolerate someone critically commenting on it. The writer Anne Fadiman creatively interlaces the moral ethics and spiritual beliefs in the struggle of the Lee family and the American doctors.

The misunderstandings regarding the Hmong history and the doctor's perception is eloquently stated. The unawareness of the doctors and the health care workers concerning the culture of Hmong family who paradoxically challenge the American's modern society and beliefs create an issue that enlightens us of our ignorance and the eccentric beliefs practiced in some cultures. The fault lies in both the doctor's as well as the Hmong's family; the health care providers should have opted for an interpreter to form a better communication, the Lee family should have maintained a pliable approach to their otherwise strict spiritual beliefs.

However the writer is unbiased regarding the interests of both the partakers which were genuinely at best for Lia Lee. The books context clearly portrays the importance of being culturally