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Hmong Vs Western Medicine

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Hmong Culture vs Western Medicine: A Social Constructionist Analysis Throughout Lia Lee’s medical journey, both her doctors and her family struggled to understand one another’s behavior resulting in misunderstandings, alienation, and distrust between the two parties. The social constructionist perspective and related theories on human behavior, such as symbolic interactionism, can be used to analyze the complicated and confusing relationship between the Lee family and the Merced County Medical Center doctors. The social constructionist perspective, as defined in the book Human Behavior and the Social Environment, states that “people construct meaning, sense of self, and a social world through their interactions with each other,” Hustchison, 2019, p 52. …show more content…
Doctors at the local California hospital later attributed Lia’s symptoms to idiopathic epilepsy. Hmong believes quag dab peg symptoms are the result of a person’s soul travelling between realms, while western medicine associates these symptoms with abnormal electrical activity in the brain. The Hmong culture sees this condition as an honor and indication that the person is called to host a healing spirit and become a shaman. The US medical system views epilepsy as an impairment. Neither the social construction of this illness nor cultural implications in Hmong and Western medicine were understood by the Lee family and the doctors treating Lia at MCMC. They did not understand or even possess the knowledge that they had contrasting socially constructed beliefs about Lia’s condition. Each party assumed the other’s thoughts as they did and did not consider the cultural factors that contributed to one another’s perceptions of the situation. This was further complicated by stereotypical thinking and language

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