The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down By Anne Fadiman

“Health is influenced by culture and beliefs” (NRS-429V, 2011, p. 1). In order for the nurse to properly care for the patient, she must know and understand the patient’s culture. “Cultural care is a comprehensive model that includes the assessment of a client’s cultural needs, beliefs, and health care practices” (NRS-429V, 2011, p. 1). It is not enough to just know where the patient lives or where he came from. The nurse must embrace the concept of cultural competence and cultural awareness. This requires not only the awareness of the cultural beliefs and values of their patients, but also

Health in all cultures is an important aspect of life. A person’s cultural background, religion and/or beliefs, greatly influences a person’s health and their response to medical care (Spector, 2004). These diverse cultures guide decisions made in daily life; what food eaten, living arrangements made, medications taken and medical advice listened to. A nurse must be knowledgeable and respectful of these diverse cultures and understand their importance when providing care. This understanding helps to build a strong nurse/patient relationship, increasing patient compliance, which ensures positive outcomes are met. Patients who are satisfied

According to the 2011 U.S. Census, twenty-one percent of the population speaks other language at home besides English. Hence, one of the biggest challenges in Healthcare is the language barrier between the providers, Health care administrators and patients that speak foreign languages. This poses a challenge for medical entities,

Unfortunately, communication barriers that exist between American employees and immigrant end users may result in massive complications such as making the jobs for employees more difficult. For instance, as the nation is being flooded with a rise of immigrant communities, “hospitals, clinics and health-care providers are increasingly confronted with language and cultural challenges that can discourage people from seeking care and lead to calamitous errors in diagnoses and treatment regimens” as mentioned in Eliza

From our text, Race, Class, and Gender, we read Unit III E: The Structure of Social Institutions; The State and Violence: Policing the National Body: Sex, Race, and Criminalization; The Color of Justice; Rape, racism, and the Law; and Interpreting and Experiencing Anti-Queer Violence : Race, Class, and Gender Differences among LGBT Hate Crime Victims. We also encountered and excerpt from Social Work Practice With a Difference; The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman. The first four reading from our text explore the association of the manner in which state power organizes race, class, and gender. We also get a view of how the intersectional approach of race, class, and gender may help us to understand some forms

The Lees, a Hmong family, came to the United States in the 1970s as refugees from Laos, and lived in Merced, California. Unlike most immigrants, the Hmong population was less amenable to assimilation. The traditional health beliefs and practices of the Hmong population were disputed by the practices of Western medicine. This became very event when the Lees took their three-month-old daughter, Lia Lee, to the emergency room in Merced. Lia was diagnosed with epilepsy a disease that had two different meaning among the Hmong population and Western medicine.

Hmong families, like the Lees in the novel “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” have been immigrating to the United States since the end of the Vietnam War. The majority of the Hmong living in the U.S. are now located in specific cities and regions of California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin (Lee and Green 2010). The Lee family moved to the Merced, California in 1980 and has had to adapt to life in a new host country (Fadiman 1997). Acculturation is used to describe how the culture of immigrants changes over time as they adapt to living in a new country (Vang 2013). Fadiman’s depiction of Nao Kao and Foua Lee’s life Merced indicates the couple resisted shedding any aspects of their culture in favor of Western culture, which is typical of first generation Hmong living in the United States. This paper will discuss why Hmong families left Laos, the findings of two acculturation studies of Hmong living in the United States, and a discussion of possible reason(s) why it has been difficult for first generation Hmong like Nao Kao and Foua to adapt to life in the United States.

This applied theory paper will analyze both the macro and micro analysis of the Novel, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman (Fadiman, 1997). In the book “The Spirit Catches You and Falls Down”, the character Lia illness resulted in a cultural divide between the Hmong culture and the American culture. Throughout this paper both the conflict theory and the family systems theory will be used to examine themes of behaviors among the characters in the text. The family and medical team use the applications of a number of different social work theories to navigate through her illness implementing a number of different strategies to nurse her to health. The author Fadiman explores the Lee’s family

Through her research, Leininger established an outline to further explain the importance of culturally competent care and the challenges presented throughout societies and healthcare institutions. The most obvious need for cultural sensitivity is the ongoing immigration throughout the world. As more people from different parts of the world enter into one area, different cultures will be present. The people that migrate to a new region or country will have the expectation that respect will be shown for their beliefs, particularly in the healthcare setting. This includes the use of technological advances in medicine. Some cultures may not understand or trust the delivery of care that is based on new technology (Andrews & Boyle, 2016).

Cultural diversity in the medical field is, at times, greatly hindered because of religious beliefs, language barriers, and the hierarchies of diverse cultures and these have the propensity to affect the continuity of care for the patients. “Every person has different aspects that constitute their identities, according to how they see themselves….This means that seeing an individual in terms of

Holding Onto the Air an autobiography by Suzanne Farrell takes the reader backstage in the dramatic life of the world-renowned Balanchine ballerina. From her childhood in Cincinnati to her retirement from ballet in 1989, Farrell's story is truly a remarkable one. The book describes at length her time with the New York City Ballet as well as her complex relationship with the legendary Balanchine. Although Mrs. Farrell goes a bit too far into the ballet descriptions, her beautiful imagery allows reader to experience the joy of performing on stage.

51). In reading Anna Fadiman book, we find that language, culture and belief barriers can cause a delay in giving proper treatment to patients. Cultural and geographical borders within any society are believed to create boundaries that limit similarities between those on opposite sides.

Throughout this paper I will be pulling information from the Giger and Davidhizar Transcultural Assessment Model. It is pertinent for health care workers to be familiar with this model because of the growing affects that culture has on a patient’s view of disease prevention and health restoration. This model focuses on six cultural phenomena: communication, time, space, social organization, environmental control, and biological variations. It is important for nurses to utilize this tool while performing assessments on patients because of the substantial effects that each one has on a patient’s perspective. Every person is unique and knowing that no one perspective is universal will aid the nurse in treating each patient with culturally competent care.

You make a great point in regards to communications and patient’s culture. As a result of globalization and the migration of health care workers, nurses need to highly educated in cultural diversity as well as effective communication. Even in a society, different social groups hold different meanings to terms (Crawford, Candlin and Roger, 2017).

It saddens me to read how so many patients have limited access to services due to their ethnic background. While our nation is known for its diversity, we still have so many patients being denied access to services because they are not proficient in the English language. This article reinforces how culture and beliefs play a large role in establishing what is normal for a particular ethnic group. Each culture may view and deal with a situation differently or find certain means more acceptable than others. As providers, it is essential that we understand these variances to help minimize inequalities between cultures. This article highlights how every patient deserves to be treated equally and have equal access to services and