How Similar or Different Is the Eastern Notion of Balance in the Human Body to the Western Medical Science Beliefs About the Nature of the Human Body?

When caring for Taoist’s patients, the most important thing to remember is their need to restore balance. For them, this may not be achieved through traditional medical practice; however, this does not mean that we should do nothing. Taoists do not believe in artificial or arbitrary healing. Healing must be natural and spontaneous (Tai, 2009). If we try to force medical treatments on them, it may in turn do more harm than good and cause great suffering. Taoists see artificial treatment as a source of evil; however, if the treatment follows the flow of Tao, it is regarded as natural and therefore allowed (Tai, 2009). For example, if a Taoist patient is in need of mechanical ventilation to sustain life, it is no longer natural. The only way to natural care for that patient, without disrupting the Tao, is to provide palliative care and ultimately let the

“Reflective learning involves assessment and re-assessment of assumptions and critical reflective occurs whenever underlying premises are being questioned”.(Williams 2001) P.29.

I will structure this essay using Gibbs Model of Reflection (Gibbs 1988). Reflective learning helps practitioners analyse their experiences and how they think and feel about them before

“Medicine was religion. Religion was society. Society was medicine” (Fadiman, 1997). To the Hmong’s, this is a way of life. Everything in their culture is interrelated and represents a holistic view. As Americans, we try to incorporate the holistic approach into our health care system, but heavily rely on medications and science to treat illness.

This reflection learning log and essay guide is a helpful learning tool for you to access when you are completing your learning log and also your reflection essay. It provides you with an introduction to the purpose for setting a reflective piece of work and the benefits this produces for you. It provides activities to help you along the way (see separate guide “ACCG 399 Developing a Reflective Capacity Guidance”) and clearly sets out the requirements that are expected of you, including what you will need to hand in at the end of the semester.

Effective reflection helps the practitioner to see the situation from an outsider's perspective, so that they can develop a better way to respond to a similar scenario in the future. Reflection is meant to achieve a change in practice, rather than simply repeating the same mistakes (Schon, 1983). Many different models exist for structuring the reflective process. Regardless of the framework used, the reflection models are meant to accomplish three things. They are supposed to promote reflecting on events, self-evaluation and analysis, and a plan to change actions in the future. This Reflective essay will utilize Driscoll's 'The What?' model as its structure (Driscoll, 1994). This model has three components"

Reflection is a process of reviewing and thinking critically about activities and how this affects learning of student’s. It is not just descriptions of what happened during the lesson; it’s to

The reliance on western medicine was insufficient. The doctors were die-hard subscribers to western medicine who urgently wanted the child in care, while the parents were resistant and preferred their own customary traditions for addressing the situation according to their mystic “diagnosis.” The clashes provide insights into Hmong culture representative of a pattern of beliefs that clash when patients from other countries face hospital trips in western hospitals. The fact is that all less developed cultures, as western medicine would call them, are reliant on their mythologies and ancient rituals stretching back hundreds of years to determine their course of treatment for their children. In fact, the rituals that they adhere to become so difficult to understand because saving the parents in the ancient spiritual cultures is not the same as saving a patient according to western medicine. The Hmongs are clearly philosophical, and even accepting of the fate of their child, as they believe that the child has already been departed from the body. They hope that the situation is only temporary, and are trying to revive the girl, but also seem prepared to face the spiritual truth if they believe the spirit will not leave. Of course, the doctors feel this is voodoo and they just want to save the child's physical life, or correct her condition. The Hmongs seem more yielding on what they believe to be the fate of their child, and focus on the spiritual character of treatment according to her soul, while the doctors are trying to directly intervene with the physical

In this case study on cross cultural medicinal beliefs and practices, Anne Fadiman addresses the rift between Hmong spiritual and medicinal customs and the culture of American biomedicine by telling the story of a young Hmong child, Lia Lee. Lia’s journey started when she was three months old and she suffered her first of many epileptic seizures. Over the next few months she continued to suffer from her seizures and made at least three emergency room visits. Like most cases of epilepsy, the cause of her grand mal seizures was unknown, however, her parents, Nao Kao and Foua Lee, believed it to be the result of her elder sister slamming the door and scaring Lia awake, allowing a dab, or evil spirit, to steal her soul. After her first visit to the Merced Community Medical Center, it became clear that the language barrier would not allow for an accurate patient history to be recorded. As Lia’s condition worsened, this barrier would further prevent the Lee’s from understanding exactly what was happening to their daughter as well as follow the treatment the doctors were implementing. This eventually lead to the doctor’s believing that Nao Kao and Foua

Many different forms of medicine are currently practiced in the world. In fact, as our text states, “in all cultures, some people have become recognized as having special abilities to treat and diagnose health problems.” (Miller 107) Without argument, phytomedicinal and supernatural healers are two forms of medical treatment that have been around for longer than any other, regardless of culture. It has been estimated that shamanism has been practiced for over ten thousand years (Tyson 3). Native American and Celtic healers are often known as shamans.

An individuals ethnicity and culture is an integral part of their life that influences their perceptions of both health and illness (Andrews & Boyle, 2016). Culture is the accumulated knowledge, values, personal and social behavior, customs, language, and religious beliefs of an ethnic group that are learned and practiced. With this being said, with the rapid rise of individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds, being aware of the perceptions of different cultures is essential in providing culturally competent care. The purpose of this paper is to explore the diverse cultural background of the patient involved in one of the four videos that were allotted to choose from and discuss their perception of health and illness. Furthermore, the overarching

There has been an increasingly large amount of interest around the areas of reflective practice and critical reflection. This interest has led to an increasing amount of literature around reflective practice and critical reflection.

Reflective practice, in this context, is not about just looking at myself in a mirror and accepting what I see blindly, without any question or evaluation. Rather, it is about looking at what I have learned and how I can utilise that learning in my teaching practice.

Traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, is one of the oldest systems of medicine to exist among humans, and it is extremely prominent to this day. According to legend, the system has been in use since the third millennium BCE. The views of such an old system differ greatly from those found in modern western medicine. Perhaps most prominent is the fact that TCM focuses more on the patient than the illness. The system considers the human to be a microcosm of the universe, implying that the body is affected by the traditional Taoist forces of yin and yang, the five elements, and Qi in the same way the cosmos are. Each of these forces act upon the “zang fu,” or organ system, directly influencing a patient’s health. Healers use qigong to assist in the restoration of stability in the body. Achieving balance, both internally and externally, is the most important aspect of healing in TCM.

This essay will review the literature to critically explore the value and purpose of reflective practice.