In California, in the city of Merced, not far from San Francisco, the high-tech Mercy Hospital has a special program for its patients from the Far East; it has a service allowance that those Eastern patients wouldnt normally get in most other places it is a shamanic healing program. Why, you ask? Of course, to begin with it all comes down to making the patient more comfortable. Elderly Koreans, Chinese and other oriental immigrants grew up with a fear of Western medicine and its invasive methods. The way they see the body is completely different, and helping them requires the use of a little sensitivity to their belief systems. And then there is the goodwill and good word-of-mouth that is to be generated by such culturally sensitive behavior.
The Joint Commission hospital accrediting group is finding that there are more and more of these hospitals these days that advertise a tolerance for shamanic healing all over the country. And for hospitals that are close to a local Chinatown or Koreatown, it builds a better bond of trust between the community and its hospital. So how is the shamanic healing actually integrated in with standard medical practices in these hospitals? Hospitals have had decades in which to understand how to deal with these belief systems that consider blood transfusions or anesthesia sacrilege.
They actually just needs to be a little cultural exchange started for the understanding to begin. Ancient Eastern cultures believe that a person falls ill not because of microbes, but because of spirits that capture the human soul. A shamanic cure involves animal sacrifices, vigorous trance dancing, fire, beating drums and clanging bells and incense. The animal sacrifices can become particularly ugly when custom requires that the sacrifice be done with the animal standing on the patient. And infection prevention practices can go awry. But hospitals have found a way to allow toned down versions of the ceremonies in the patients room. Sometimes, the hospitals discover that the patient does actually recover after a round of shamanic healing. And for their part, the shamans try to learn a thing or two about Western medicine, as they are given the dime tour with a look through microscopes for the first time, to look at germs and cells.
This kind of cross-cultural medical exchange can be found to occur among Western doctors and Native Indian shamans, called medicine men, too. Some of these hospitals that agree to deal with shamanic healing will actually have shamans on call to deal with patients who ask for such services, but do not have a shaman of their own sort of a referral. The surprising thing in all of this is that the doctors dont just grudgingly put up with these fringe belief systems for a chance to help their patients; sometimes they seem to actually half believe in them.
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