Medicine should not be political. It doesn’t sound like a complicated statement. But it comes with a related one; medical issues should not be second to political ones. If medical evidence is contrary to political belief, political belief should know when to step down. If only that were so. However, there’s been a recent influx of political belief that has […]
Miscommunication and disaster: lessons from Anne Fadiman
Anne Fadiman’s National Book Critics Circle award-winning book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is the story of a young Hmong girl with epilepsy. Her parents speak no English and are completely unaware of anything related to modern medicine, and the doctors that treat her know almost nothing about the Hmong and their culture. Not surprisingly, the two […]