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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures

by Anne Fadiman
4.1
based on 49048 ratings

About this book

Lia Lee was born in 1981 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, over-medication, and culture clash: "What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance." The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Downis a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. Sherwin Nuland said of the account, "There are no villains in Fadiman's tale, just as there are no heroes. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty--and their nobility."

Book Details

ISBN13 9780374525644
ISBN10 0374525641
Series/Work OL16027608W View on OpenLibrary
Language ENG
Created At January 30, 2025
Updated At January 30, 2025
Last OL update January 18, 2025

Subjects

Ärztliche Behandlung Attitude of Health Personnel Case Reports Case studies Child Cross-Cultural Comparison Emigration and Immigration Epilepsy Epilepsy in children Geneeskunde Hmong American children Hmong Americans Hmong (asian people), united states Intercultural communication Kulturkonflikt Medical care Medicine Reading Level-Grade 10 Reading Level-Grade 11 Reading Level-Grade 12

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