Cultural differences can pose problems for health care workers. In the case of Linda Gorman, she is faced with the decision to report a woman for child abuse, or chalk it up to cultural differences. The question shouldn’t be whether or not she should report Mrs. Saeto, but rather, are Mrs. Saeto’s actions really considered child abuse? The answer to this can get muddled in cultural beliefs. For Americans, her actions qualify as abusive because Mrs. Saeto is unnecessarily causing harm to baby Marie by burning her.
To the Mien culture, this is merely an act of protecting the child and curing her from an ailment. It really depends on what viewpoint one looks at it from. In the Mien culture, practices like this burning ritual are commonplace. The Mien culture believes in spirits and rituals that can cure ailments. To some outside of the culture, these practices may seem barbaric, but to them, some of American practices may seem barbaric as well. For example, Linda mentions the differences between burning a child and causing a child pain by giving them a shot.
Both cause the baby to cry, and to both cultures, both are considered to be helping the baby stay healthy. To anyone outside of the American culture, American medical practices can potentially seem just as barbaric as burning a baby. This is directly related to cultural relativity, or “the view that practices and behaviors can be judged only by the cultural standards of the culture in which those practices occur,” (Hachen, n. d. ).
The Essay on Culture and Cultural Norms
Culture can be referred to as a people’s way of life. It can be used to refer to the way we live and all that goes along with our life. That means that for us to have a life we have to be affiliated to a certain culture or to belong to a certain culture. To be in a certain culture, one has to comply will the cultural values, norms and expectations. Cultural values can be used or rather the term ...
According to David Hachen, “rejecting cultural relativity implies that there are universal standards by which the practices in all cultures can be evaluated,” (Hachen, n. . ).
If Linda assumes that Mrs. Saeto’s beliefs are barbaric and should be reported, she is practicing ethnocentrism, or “the view that one’s own culture is the superior culture and therefore its standards are the ‘universal’ ones that should be used to judge behaviors in all cultures,” (Hachen, n. d. ).
Linda needs to decide whether her practices and beliefs are superior to Mrs. Saeto’s, and therefore the standard by which to compare Mrs. Saeto’s actions. Should Linda find Mrs. Saeto’s actions unacceptable in the American culture, how should she proceed?
Should she report Mrs. Saeto for child abuse, or should she confront her in the hopes to change Mrs. Saeto’s opinions concerning Mien cultural cures and medical practices? If Linda decides to confront Mrs. Saeto, she should probably explain to her that in America, most people would consider her actions abusive to baby Marie and that she should probably not continue to “cure” her in this manner. This poses another ethical dilemma.
By imparting this knowledge to Mrs. Saeto, Linda is, in a sense, assimilating Mrs. Saeto to American culture. How far is too far? If Mrs. Saeto gives up this practice, and similar ones, in order to not seem abusive to her American peers, what else will she have to give up from her culture? Linda’s best options for handling the situation are to talk to Mrs. Saeto and try to explain the dilemma to her. She should convey that she understands the cultural differences, but that if another doctor who does not understand sees the burns, it may be misconstrued as child abuse.
She shouldn’t threaten Mrs. Saeto with reporting her, but should rather allow Mrs. Saeto to see both sides of the story, as Linda is seeing them. Hopefully, this will allow Mrs. Saeto to make an educated decision in her own time, regarding the practices. Neither side is right, nor wrong, in this case, however, Mrs. Saeto must be made aware of the potential danger she could face by continuing her Mien practices in America, where the wrong person may see and not understand and make a rash decision that could harm Mrs. Saeto’s family in the long run.
