Question

essay on culture from the book "the spirit that catches you when you fall down"

Answer 1

I was actually taught using this book in undergraduate. This was some time ago, but I think that the most important thing I learned from it is that culture has a HUGE, ASTRONOMICAL effect on how people view medicine and medical advice. People's willingness to follow through on medical treatment is critical.

Personally, I think cultural competency issues are somewhat terrifying, because they represent blind spots of which we are frequently unaware, but can mightily derail a treatment. They're things that we don't know that we don't know, until they cause problems. Compensating for them is difficult if you don't know they're there.

It's really difficult to adequately understand the potential strength of this effect without case studies, and I think Spirit is used because it makes a great, very in-depth case study. It's also well written, and discusses the Hmong culture and the life of the family without pathologizing them, both of which are very helpful.

So, basically, I think that they're priming future doctors to be aware of the potential pitfalls of cultural differences, and reminding them of the importance of cultural competency. They're also trying to develop some empathy by showing them a case of behavior that is, on the surface, incomprehensible and difficult to empathize with. The book, however, does a great job of explaining why the family felt as they did, and I think this might create a pattern in the mind of a student - apparently impossible, unsympathetic behaviors may have sympathetic roots, if only we knew what they were.