The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down

I entered the hospital setting as a volunteer, realizing language barrier was a much greater obstacle in my community than I expected. Many visitors and patients have difficulty seeking assistance because they often don’t know enough of the English language to understand. The frustration from speaking broken

Non-English speaking citizens and immigrants are receiving improper medical care because of the miscommunication. The people who cannot speak English well are misunderstood, when they go to free clinics or hospital emergency rooms and attempt to explain their symptoms and illness or cannot understand the doctors or medical profession that are trying to help them. ” Interpreters are omitting questions about drug allergies. Patients are not telling nurses the correct symptoms. A mother misunderstood by putting oral antibiotic into the ears of the child instead of the mouth. The Puerto Rican word for mumps is not the same in Central America, so a child was mistreated. A doctor mistakenly told a parent to put a steroid crème on entire child instead of just the face” (Yolanda Prtida, 2005). Language barriers in the medical field are dangerous and some times even fatal. There is definitely a need for more translators in hospitals and doctors office. Clear communication is essential for safe quality healthcare. Poor communication can lead to disastrous outcomes, especially for patients with limited or no English ability.

In 2004 my grandmother and I moved from Haiti to United States without a speck of English in our language. After few years living in the states, my grandma started to get ill and she had to seek monthly medical assistance. At the time, my mother was working multiple jobs and I was a full time undergrad student that lived on college campus. Our busy schedule posed a challenge for us to bring grandma to her medical appointments. Most times it was hard for us to find someone to go with her and assist her with language translation. When it was time for her to go by herself, the health providers would have trouble finding a professional translator on the spot to assist my grandma. This became a repetitive problem and my grandma’s case was not getting any better. If she had the ability to communicate with her provider using her own language, she would have been able to be more expressive about her symptoms and the doctors would have assisted her to her needs. Just like my grandma, many people that speaks little to no English, are having trouble interpreting their medical diagnosis and communicating with their healthcare providers.

Can you imagine the how the healthcare industry would be without language, what seems to be impossible to imagine is the everyday reality of some patients because of their native language. Language is a major contribution to the health disparities that some populations face, because it makes it difficult for some patients to communicate their problems as well as understand the care they provided. Language contributes to the health disparities that some populations face because it creates a barrier between the patient and the care provider, making it difficult for a patient to receive proper care. Language barriers create a communication gap between a patient and a provider, forcing the patient to feel misunderstood and unable to trust his/her provider to properly care for them. I come from a family that speaks more than one language, so I have seen the impact language barriers can have on someone who doesn’t speak fluent English.

For example; If a patient does not speak the language of which country they are in, interpreters or translators may be needed in order to help communicate with people from the local area. These are important to keep the person informed about what is happening and what is going to happen. Supporting individuals to express their needs and

“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.

Structural Causes of Cultural Insensitivity in Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

1.) The book that I chose for my book report is, The spirit catches you and you fall down. The book was written by essayist and reporter, Ann Fadiman and was published in 1997 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. There are 288 pages in this book.

In a perfect world, race, ethnicity and culture would have no negative effect on the medical care we receive, yet problems do arise and it affects the quality of care the patient receives. Language barrier, poor socioeconomic status, and poor health literacy also contribute to health care disparity. For Lia, it was more than her skin color, it was all of the above, her parents did not speak English and they were illiterate. They had trouble understanding the American healthcare system, had trouble or little interest in adjusting to or understanding the American culture. They didn’t work, which in addition to cross cultural misunderstanding, helped contribute to animosity between the Hmong and the host community, because some in the Merced area did not like or appreciate the fact that some Hmong did not work and relied on welfare to make ends meet. All these factors, contributed to the poor quality of

Insuring that the patient fully understands what is being done to them is of great importance. As patients, they have the right to understand what is being done and why. Informed consent must be given; the patient should be able to repeat what they have been informed of before the procedure is done. Currently “only 33 percent of U.S. hospitals have quality improvement efforts underway to improve the quality of their language access programs.” (Armand and Hubbard, 2010). The goal of the interpreter is to assure that the LEP patient has no doubts or concerns and totally understands what is going to happen, why, and any options they may have.

I appreciated how Colette Rabin’s (2009) article describes teachers’ dispositions as one’s “tendencies to be” in a particular classroom. The article acknowledges how dispositions bridge the gap between skills and how one is inclined to act. The study examined how the arts from visual to literary foster lasting impressions and dispositions in preservice teachers. The study offered preservice teachers to learn about diverse students through the literary arts by reading following books:

Effective communication is important in providing safe health care. Miscommunication can lead to many errors, which can inadvertently affect compliance, accurate diagnosis, and health promotion. There are a variety of translation services offered in the United States; however,

Working as a scribe at a family medicine clinic has provided me a snapshot of the variety of patients I will encounter in the future. In Corvallis, there is a small population of Arabic-speaking individuals. With the ability to fluently speak Arabic I frequently translate their concerns to the physician. As a result, providers are able to accurately diagnose and treat their ailments without the language

Many non-english speaking patients are getting lost in translation during hospital visits. This can create problems, for it is vital for patients and doctors to understand each other. Medical emergencies are not avoidable and can happen to anyone at any time. It is very important to have medical interpreters on hand to quickly relay information back and forth. Interpreters help to avoid potential life threatening situations by breaking down language barriers. Without Interpreters and translators some people would not be able to understand the very situations they are in.

I learned that langue is more than a form of communication, instead it serves as an individual’s identity and sense of security. Every patient that I observed instantly lit up when the interpreter began to speak in Spanish. Their earlier state of confusion and panic disappeared and became replaced with a sense of security and confidence. It was amazing to witness this occurrence every time I saw a new patient.