For This Paper, I Interviewed A Close Family Friend Named

Accompanying with the enormous technological progress, medicine as a modern science has been affected in many positive ways. However, the timeless tradition and the everlasting secret of medicine is merely care giving. Modern medicine has been relying too much on technology, which is cool, but also very cold from a humanistic aspect. All the patients are presented by a series of numbers via binary signals of the internet. Nowadays, medicine is more about running tests and diagnosing based on numbers, as opposed to investigating symptoms upon the physician’s observational skills and comprehensive knowledge. As bedside caring becomes less concerned as it was in the old days, the diminishing of the sense of caring in medical professionals appears as a side effect. There is no doubt that technology enables medical professionals to perform all types of fancy tasks, though it is their offering of compassion that comforts the patients the most. And this quintessence of medical practice ought not to be overlooked at any point of the history of medicine.

A Heart for the Work: Journeys Through an African Medical School by Claire L. Wendland is both an first hand account of time spent in an African medical school and hospital as well as a critique on Western medical practices. Dr. Wendland, an accomplished anthropologist and physician, provides a first hand account of her time in a Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world. Through this account she provides insight into the complete journey a student must take to become a doctor in conditions much different than our own. These insights and research are used to argue that medicine, or biomedicine as it is called, is part of a cultural system and is predicated on the cultural ideals and resources of developed nations. Wendland uses the differences in moral order, technology, and resources between the Malawian culture and our own culture to provide evidence for her main argument.

For as long as I could remember, I have seen my father rushing to the hospital in a white coat, answering pagers in the middle of important family conversations and attending night calls even in the most terrible weather. I had always wondered; what could be so important that it belittles every other responsibility in his life. It was only after many years of anguish and protests that it finally made sense to me. This defining moment of realization occurred when I first met a patient in his office. I saw how the gratitude in the patient’s eyes can provide a sense of fulfillment that triumphs all other feelings in the universe. It was human life that was most important. Being a doctor does not make you a mere healer but also gives you the responsibility of a caregiver. I had never felt more proud of my father and that was the day I felt the urge to relive this feeling many times over. It was there in that moment that I decided to pursue a career in medicine.

Abraham Verghese is a medical practitioner that had grown acustom to unorthodox ways of medical practioning that had been widely used by doctors long before the advancement offered by technical medical supplies and expertise. Though he is learning to accept the multitude of advancements that are becoming availabe to the wide variety of cases to be treated he is still used to the "old school" ways of having bedside manners that could inform doctors better if not equal to what information is displayed on a computer screen. Verghese has argued that bedside manners are becoming that of an ancient relic of medical practioning becuase of computers and technology that hold data for an "icon" instead of a living person, in this way that he argues it is seen as a old lifestyle that is being put out to pasture and being replaced by a tech phenomenom that is considered to be a major leap to saving lives. Abraham Verghese is in awe of the history that is being sweapt underneath the metaphorical rug as this new modern technoogy takes its place, taking place of useful strategies that were available before the help of a machine.

A physician must be well rounded in a variety of fields to provide effective care. First, an interest in learning scientific knowledge must be accompanied by the ability to translate that knowledge into methods of treatment. Because science is constantly changing and improving, a physician should be continuously expanding their scientific learning within and outside of their respective fields. Most of the coursework that I have taken reflects my interest in the intersection between biomedical science and its applications through an anthropological lens. For example, I have performed public

a) Dr. Sandra Soo-Jin Lee focuses on sociocultural ethical issues in her field of medical anthropology. She studies with an intersectional approach to data and science. (“Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, Ph.D.”, n.d.).

Interacting with patients of diverse backgrounds and origins requires physicians to be highly culturally aware so as to create a trust between themselves and their patients. There are many aspects of a patient’s life that may manifest into their overall health, such as the social determinants of health. Culture may play a vital role in a person’s social outlook on life, and understanding cultural disparities is essential in delivering the highest level of patient care. Being culturally unaware hinders a physician from being able to treat patients from diverse backgrounds. Therefore, being culturally competent as well as having the skills to deal with cultural disparities effectively equips a physician to be able to travel anywhere in the world and deliver patient care as well as deliver patient care to a larger population within their own

For this assignment, I knew I wanted to interview a person who worked as some sort of child psychologist. I decided to interview a child psychologist because I am interested in working with immigrant children and advocating specifically for their mental health.

In this paper I’m going to introduce to you a person who was born in Russia, lived for a short period of time in Romania and now, he is living in the United States. His name is Eugen and me and my husband we met him here, in North Carolina. I will try to highlight what are his values regarding health and illness and how these imply a person and what kind of health practice is unique in Eugen's culture or at least not so popular in the world. I will try to explain how this interview helped me to better understand how to approach my patients, especially those who are coming from different cultures.

Growing up, being a physician was never a part of my plan. Coming from a first generation immigrant family, I was encouraged to simply do what I could with what I had. There was never an emphasis to do anything beyond living day by day. I saw this not only in myself, but also in those around me. Yet, the exception to this came from my mother.

Today’s society is a mix of all the nations, languages, traditions, beliefs and cultures. The diversity of values is what makes society stronger, interesting, more or less acceptable to some forms of foreign influence in one way or another. In general, the assimilation process into society goes with an intermittent level of success, cultural differences arise when dealing with certain aspects of life. In healthcare, people are interacting within very close physical distance, discussing intimate health details, present at the at happy (childbirths) or tragic (death) moments, where stress can bring patients and their families to an edge, those deep rooted cultural differences can be seen without any cultural shields.

While caring for patients from different backgrounds, I have gained a broader understanding of how different cultures view

A man walked out of the doctors office, he had just been told that he had an incurable kind of cancer, and was given 15 years to live. Most people who had this cancer didn’t know they had it until it was too late, this man was lucky. The doctors wouldn’t have been able to do this without the advancement in technology, machines, etc. That man was my grandpa, and he is still living with that cancer. The medicine and technology used to diagnose my grandpa was prefaced by the medical advancements of the Renaissance. Although being a doctor during the Renaissance period would’ve been a life changing experience, being a doctor in modern time would be far superior. Modern doctors are trusted, do to having

Although my dad acquired health insurance through his job later in life, the lack of exchange with health professionals as well as cultural barriers caused my parents to be skeptical of doctors, a skepticism that I too developed. Whenever someone had a medical issue, home remedies were the immediate course of action. When I developed gallstones, the doctors suggested surgery, but my mother refused until we tried her treatment first. This meant I had to drink half a cup of olive oil, an herbal tea that acts as a laxative and then sleep on my right side to get the stones out. It didn’t work. For me, the knowledge of science in school and my immersion into western culture subdued this distrust of health professionals. Furthermore, a stint of cancer in a close family member had us spending most of our time in hospitals- an experience that showed me the healing powers of a different kind of medicine I had not grown up with. I had developed an appreciation of all medicines and learned that the form of medicine my parents trusted and the form of medicine I had become passionate about did not have to be mutually exclusive. That is, when I decided to become a doctor I found that this made me more aware of a holistic view of medicine that many patients of different cultural backgrounds value.

I was born and raised in a small village in India. My father was a farmer and my mother is a housewife. It troubled many people in my village that no doctors were in close proximity. For me, it was a relief, as I feared getting big needles in my thighs. What pleased me most, was a swing set in our back yard. I would sit there for hours, without a care in the world, simply singing songs and swinging back and forth. On that swing I felt untouchable. In the swing’s gentle motion, I was overcome with a sense of peace. One day, I woke up and found that the swing no longer existed. Our backyard had been rebuilt and the ground, which had once supported our youth, had been transformed. Things changed as I grew up and that serenity was lost somewhere with those childhood moments. I am always searching for the swing, longing to find a resemblance of that peace. I hope to find it each day, as the product of my life and of my career. Ironically, I have learned that being in the medical feild brings me that contentment.