Dr. Meg Laurel an inspirited doctor, who gives up the comfort and security of her husband home and practice in Boston, to return to her hometown in the Blue Ridge Mountains to help the Appalachian people, but the Harvard’s education had made her forget the way people are to how to behave within the culture you are living in. First impressions count the most, as Dr. Meg enters the house where Effie is on her deathbed, the disrespectful way in which she talks to the local medicine woman, and pushed her out the way and the way in which she directs her frustration on the people present who are there just trying to comfort the moribund on her last moment. In addition to trying to give CPR to the dead, by kissing the corpse, as it is perceived,…show more content… Laurel comes to the realization, that in order for her to help her community, it is not by going against the local medicine person, but to learn from the 40 years of experience that the medicine person has with all the knowledge of natural medicine, and that by doing that, she can start to gain the trust of the people. At first, she tries it with the medicine that she has, taking care of the girls who was stung by dozens of bees, but since it was done without first consulting the parent, the father destroyed most of her medicine. Then she goes to the wedding, trying not to bring discomfort to the celebration, she stays afar, and the community sees that Granny is the one who approaches her to talk. Then Granny who did not want the Dr. around at first, notice that the medicine used on the little girl was effective and that the Dr. also had good intentions, that is why Granny approach the Dr. and asked her to join her to go help bring a child into the world, after Granny has check out the patient, and notice that the child is in the opposite direction, she gives up and say that she cannot do anything about it and that the child will die, (in a sense, it is like testing the doctor and her abilities, because midwifes had known for a long time how to massage the baby to have them change their position) that is when the Dr. step up to take this opportunity to save the day, but not soon enough she realized that she left her medical bag at another location and has to resort to do a satisfactory rudimentary cesarean section with what was available in the client’s house. But it is Granny who reproaches a neighbor for giving misinformation on who was the one that helped to bring out the new baby, and made him go and tell the others that the Dr. was the only one who was able to do
