As a health care professional, doctors and other medical staffs were trained to listen and help the patients in various ways, explain the treatments and try to promote health in the general population. But why did the doctors and medical staffs in MCMC get so annoyed and frustrated by the Hmong’s patients? And since America was a diverse country, did the medical frustrations describe in the chapter happen every day and everywhere throughout the country?
The title “high velocity transcortical lead therapy” was very significant to the overall theme of the chapter and had a sense of humor because it described the frustration doctors had toward the Hmong patients. The doctors and staffs were so frustrated with their relationships with their Hmong patients that they joked that the best way to treat them were to shoot them in the head. This frustration was a response to the doctor’s relationships with their Hmong patients in the chapter.
Throughout the chapter the cycle of misunderstanding, fear, and distrust was perpetuated. Unable to communicate effectively due to language as well as cultural barriers was one of the main reasons of the ongoing frustration. Doctors only wanted to help their patients get better, by the method of western medical knowledge, which was a typical example of western biomedical model. But the Hmong didn’t understand why the doctors did what they did, because the Hmong was practicing their own bio cultural model, plus the western medical technology was not common in Asia until recently. And because the bio cultural model and the ideal of biomedical model cannot be mixed completely, it seems reasonable to say that even both sides been able to communicate effectively, in the American doctor’s eyes, the practices of Hmong’s cultural in the hospital was disturbing, to other patients and staffs, while the Hmong patients view the American doctors as disrespectful because they didn’t let them practice they own cultural in the hospital.
The American doctor's argument was that western medicine was necessary to cure the illness, but the Hmong did not. American doctors had gone to medical school for several years to learn how to deal with patients; they felt that when they were dealing with a Hmong, they were completely different from dealing with American patients, therefore cause the frustration. The Hmong were different because neither did they acquire any western medical knowledge nor can they describe the condition in a biomedical way. The Hmong’s points of view were completely opposite; they believe that traditions method was the best method to heal them. They use different cultural herbal treatments, for various illnesses, which the American doctors did not agree. They were fear of biomedicine and western physician, because it was strange to them.
It would help if the doctors were naturally sympathetic and try to understand their patients despite the language and cultural barriers. Even though the doctors may not have time to study up Hmong culture, if they were more culturally in touch with the patients, they would be more likely to be able to understand the confusion their patients experience and break through those barriers and reassemble the communicate respectfully, which in turn builds the patients respect and trust towards them. The
