Impression on Healthcare System

The exploration of the conflict involving the California county hospital and refugee family reveals high cost likely to emerge in the dichotomy pitting perceived spiritual factors versus scientific factors. The presence of miscommunications between the immigrant family and health practitioners creates animosity as their perception conflicted. It yields an impression of mistrust and misunderstandings that affects the behavioral response. The theme presents a difficult experience for a healthcare system where the practitioners are unable to develop and integrate traditional perceptions in scopes that bridge the cultural beliefs. It implies that the parental refusal to honor the prescriptions was avoidable if the health practitioners engaged Hmong interpreters.  In particular, the misdiagnosis of Lia first seizure and inability to converse in the Hmong language left a worsening health condition.

Reading the book has changed my impression of the healthcare system by placing multi-stakeholder input that bridges the cultural barriers. The book reveals Lia’s condition worsened from insufficient cultural competence to understand Hmong lifestyle. The absence of Hmong interpreters made the health practitioners at Merced Community Medical Center to communicate the misdiagnosis. The book reveals a failure to bridge the Hmong tradition made it difficult to overcome the association of Lia Lee’s state with spiritual giftedness. The revealed case of Lia’s deterioration health, allows the book stimulate more awareness and broader dialogue on bridging cultural competence gap for healthcare practitioners.

Adapting healthcare system to nurture cultural respect

The growing population of Latinos of South-American descent makes the case to overcome the cultural competence to address the high prevalence of acute lifestyle diseases. The solution lies in stimulating a prevention mindset amongst Cubans and Puerto Ricans. The objective involves overcoming the delay witnessed when accessing medical care until the condition worsens. It warrants awareness campaign for a need to seek immediate medical care to replace the belief of pain tolerance without complaint. The situation mandates admitting more Cubans and Puerto Ricans to have a corresponding growth in the healthcare system. The physicians would assist reach to fellow Latinos and overcome the cultural factors holding them. Adjusting the healthcare system to accommodate more Latino physicians would help resolve language barriers in communicating medical terminologies. Lastly, it sends an inclusive platform that leaves Latinos often feeling less listened and understood by physicians. It would overcome the feeling that Latinos have over unfair treatment in the American medical system.

Reasons for non-adherence

Lia’s parents failed to adhere to the prescription citing her state illustrated spiritual giftedness, a reason they would not desire taking it away. Secondly, they believed her critical condition did not warrant the transfer of Lia to Fresno but to suit Dr. Ernst’s vacation plans. They held a belief that American physicians would draw blood from patients (Fadiman, 2012). It contradicted the Hmong belief that individual’s finite and irreplaceable blood amount. They believed the referral of Lia to Fresno exposed her to doctors who would remove her organs and sell. Again, the Hmong belief emphasized that anesthetizing patients would separate themselves from their souls. Hospital treatment would cut the spirit strings, thus disruptive to life-soul bond (Fadiman, 2012). Instead, physicians attending to Lia should embrace patient-doctor interactions to adequately involve them in the treatment. The involvement of Hmong interpreters and physicians of similar origin would yield trust and understanding in the doctor-parent interaction. The rapport would enable the two parties to understand each other and inform the parents of benefits to honor the prescriptions.

Fadiman, A. (2012, April 24). The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. New York: Straus and Giroux.

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