Neo Shamanism, Organ Transplants, Ayurveda, And Traditional Chinese Medicine ( Tcm )

Learning Bharatnatyam, an Indian classical dance form, since the age of 5 has taught me perseverance and the importance of hard work —characteristics that will allow me to achieve my ultimate goal of becoming a doctor. This passion for medicine parallels my early journey through dance and has been reinforced by memorable experiences along the way. One of my earliest experiences involved a childhood friend who battled a brain tumor for nearly three years before succumbing to her illness. To me, her loss was heightened by a sense of unfairness—she was too young to have been robbed of her life before she truly had a chance to live. These thoughts followed me through adolescence as my mother also began to face a variety of health problems. Seeing how much disease and pain robs an individual of their essential nature frightened me and made me feel helpless.

Born in China, I grew up with Western medicine alongside thousands-years-old Traditional Chinese Medicine. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, diseases are thought to be due to an imbalance of life energy force (qi). While it has curative treatments, such as herbal medicine and acupuncture, there’s a greater emphasis on disease prevention through balanced diet, meditation, and exercise. My upbringing meant I can appreciate that there might different approaches to medicine and healing. I moved to the US when I was eleven years old and quickly became bilingual. Being fluent in two languages makes it easier for me to not only communicate with more people, but also form deeper connections through a common language. I had the opportunity to experience two cultures, whose differences and similarities have only enriched my life. I believe my exposure to a different type of medicine as well as my immigrant experience helped to shape my worldview and can bring educational benefits to Georgetown.

After reading Alvord and Cohen’s The Scalpel and the Silver Bear, I found myself looking at the world in a new spiritual way. Alvord is known to many as the first Navajo woman surgeon. Having grown up as a Navajo with a white mother, her life was a constant mix of her Navajo ways and the ways of the Western world. One of the main philosophies of her Navajo culture of healing that she focuses on is ‘walking in beauty’. The Navajo do not view the body as a single being but as a connection to the rest of the world. With the belief that everything is connected, the Navajo believe that negativity in any aspect of one’s life will bring something bad to the person later. A harmonious life, one in which their mind, body and spirit is positively connected to those around them, leads to a healthy one. When Alvord decided to go against her Navajo ways and enter the world of Western medicine she did so with the goal to bring the healing philosophies of her people with

“Medicine was religion. Religion was society. Society was medicine” (Fadiman, 1997). To the Hmong’s, this is a way of life. Everything in their culture is interrelated and represents a holistic view. As Americans, we try to incorporate the holistic approach into our health care system, but heavily rely on medications and science to treat illness.

The book The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine by Shigehisa Kuriyama overall felt like it was about perceptions of ancient medicine between the east and west. The author goes back and forth comparing and contrasting the different approaches of the Greek and Chinese, where even though both cultures have different approaches there actually are some similarities, which was believed due to, “the movements of people” (page 204). The book is separated into three parts: styles of touching, styles of seeing and styles of being.

On the other hand, western medicine doctors diagnose the problem by observing the physical symptoms, screening the blood, and perform various other medical techniques that rely on advanced medical education and training. Doctors are concerned with the physical symptoms and disregard the “soul” which in turn conflicts with the Hmong culture because they believe in souls and higher mental processes. Fadiman’s proved that the central argument was the collision between the Hmong culture and the physical disease treatment of western medicine.

In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Lia’s health complications could have been prevented or alleviated if the doctors had taken the cultural differences, cultural belief and practices of the Hmong community into account. While doctors in this book had received a Western type of foundation in terms of their medical preparation, this book demonstrated that how the life of a patient could have been improved when he/she is examined holistically.

“In the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, Anne Fadiman explores the subject of cross cultural misunderstanding. This she effectively portrays using Lia, a Hmong, her medical history, the misunderstandings created by obstacles of communication, the religious background, the battle with modernized medical science and cultural anachronisms. Handling an epileptic child, in a strange land in a manner very unlike the shamanistic animism they were accustomed to, generated many problems for her parents. The author dwells on the radically different cultures to highlight the necessity for medical communities to have an understanding of the immigrants when treating them.

The United States is known for its melting pot of cultures, which creates one of the most contentious issues in the medical world which is the clash of cultures. The book we read “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” is a great example of how a miss communication and struggle between cultures which lead to a very dismal end. The difference in beliefs cause constant issues in communication, even though both want what is best.

Seth Holmes, the Author of “Fresh Fruit Broken Bodies”, is a cultural and medical anthropologist and physician. The focus of this ethnography is directly in the scope of his interests and his perspective as a physician and as a white person gives an interesting view of how he walkes through the world compared to the people he meets.

Shamanistic healing, one of the oldest spiritual healing powers, has recently become a topic of interest in modern medicine.

D. Thesis - Organ donation and Transplants are the most remarkable success stories in the history of medicine. They give hope to

Bioethicists ask these questions in the context of modern medicine and draw on a plurality of traditions, both secular and religious, to help society understand and keep pace with how advances in science and medical technology can change the way we experience the meaning of health and illness and, ultimately, the way we lve.

The practice of traditional medicine among the people of Nigeria in the Western region of Africa transcends the advent of Bio-Medicine and occupies a prominent position in the delivery of health care.

Traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, is one of the oldest systems of medicine to exist among humans, and it is extremely prominent to this day. According to legend, the system has been in use since the third millennium BCE. The views of such an old system differ greatly from those found in modern western medicine. Perhaps most prominent is the fact that TCM focuses more on the patient than the illness. The system considers the human to be a microcosm of the universe, implying that the body is affected by the traditional Taoist forces of yin and yang, the five elements, and Qi in the same way the cosmos are. Each of these forces act upon the “zang fu,” or organ system, directly influencing a patient’s health. Healers use qigong to assist in the restoration of stability in the body. Achieving balance, both internally and externally, is the most important aspect of healing in TCM.