What are you reading?

"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" by Anne Fadiman. The book was fantastic. ... One, because it was so well-written, and two, it shows the gap, the chasm between our western Cartesian model of medicine and a more animist way of looking at medicine. ... It's an excellent book to read, not only to understand our own culture better but also the Hmong culture. You can start to see outside your own culture.

How does Fadiman get us to see outside ourselves?

She has so much compassion for these people trying to make sense of our society and how we see health and disease, so the reader walks away with so much compassion for another perspective. We tend to be fairly arrogant about our way of life — that this is the way of life every human should aspire to have. But as you read this book, you see that maybe not — there's another way that people can live and organize their society.

Did this story open your awareness about your patients and your own translation of a different approach to healing?

Absolutely. And for people who are so completely different than we are. I am trying to bridge the gap between western and eastern, western and holistic healing. But I also refer my patients to western doctors because there's a time and place for it. What came up for me was really to understand the patient from their cultural orientation. You're not just treating the rash, you're treating the patient within the context of their culture and perception. That's the piece that we need to bring into western medicine. It's not just a rash, it's a rash on a person.