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Summary Of The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

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Self Determination & Informed Consent In Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the Lacks family faced many challenges as the result of segregation and discrimination prominent in the time era. The values and ethical principles that social workers practice today would have benefited the Lacks family greatly. When Henrietta fell ill it was common practice for patients, especially African American female patients, to not question the doctors word. According to Skloot doctors practiced “benevolent deception” this allowed for doctors to deny the patients fundamental information about their health, some doctors would withhold diagnosis from patients all together (Skloot, 2010, p.63). The doctors justified this type of practice …show more content…

It was common for individuals that are mentally challenged to be institutionalized and once Elsie became too big for Henrietta to handle on her own the doctors recommended sending her away to Crownsville State Hospital (formerly known as the hospital for the negro insane) in order for Henrietta to be able to raise her other children (Skloot, 2010, p. 45). Some of the records available from Crownsville Hospital give an insight into the practices and conditions within the hospital. Records from 1948 show that the death rate was higher than the discharge rate of patients and in 1955, the year that Elsie passed away, the hospital had over 800 above the maximum …show more content…

The obligation of a social worker is to be aware of individual differences as well as cultural and ethnic diversity while treating each client in a kind and courteous manner (Kirst-Ashman, & Hull, 2012, p. 412). In relation to the ethical principle of Clients who Lack Decision Making Capacity (1.14) the obligation of a social worker is to protect the rights of individuals who have been deemed “legally incompetent”. Everything done by the social worker should be in the best interest of that client (Kirst-Ashman, & Hull, 2012, p. 402). The core value of Social Justice is important do address because it ties in to many parts of the book. Social change efforts from the social worker are necessary in order to promote knowledge and cultural competency about the injustices and discrimination of individuals incarcerated in Crownsville hospital as well as the injustices and discrimination of Henrietta and the rest of her family (Kirst-Ashman, & Hull, 2012, p.

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022300 Courtney Davis Mrs. Allinder IB Literature 10 October 2016 Emotional Ties Created In The Reader Thesis: In the creative non-fiction book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, creates emotional ties to the reader through the character, Deborah. Topic Sentence: Deborah was spoken about by Skloot before Deborah appeared as a live character with dialogue to form a founding idea about Deborah in the reader. Evidence: When Skloot had finally received Deborah’s number from Pattillo, Pattillo gave Skloot a list of what to do and what not to do when “dealing with” Deborah. He told her not to be aggressive or “clinical”, not to force Deborah to do anything, and definitely “don’t talk down” to her because “she hates that”.

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Introduction The topic of this paper will be the book “ The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”. This paper will talk about five main points of the book that I thought were the biggest and most important parts of the book. Growing up As Henrietta was growing up, she lived with her grandfather and other cousins.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is at once a biography, a work of science journalism, and a book about the interconnected topics of ethics, justice, and racism. Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman who died from cervical cancer in 1951, was the source of the so-called HeLa cell line, which is “omnipresent” (Skloot, 2010, p. 24) in modern science. The HeLa cell line was derived from Henrietta Lacks’ cancerous tumor, which, against the wishes of Henrietta’s family was taken from her corpse and has been used for prolific and lucrative medical research for over seven decades (Skloot, 2010). Skloot (2010) described The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as “a biography of both the cells and the woman they came from—someone’s daughter, wife, and mother” (pp. 25-26). While the HeLa cells are ubiquitous in research, the woman from whom they came is, at best, a footnote in biological or medical textbooks.

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The article The End of the Henrietta Lacks Sage? From the Smithsonian magazine was written by Rachel Nuwer in 2013. The Smithsonian is a magazine that provides an outlook on the major topics in history, science art, popular culture and innovation all in one. This certain article dealing with science is well written. Authors should use critical thinking when writing magazine articles, but some do not.

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In 1951 Henrietta omplained of a “knot in her uterus” and went to John Hopkins Hospital, a charity hospital for the poor and black, to get it checked out. Her doctor diagnosed the hard lump as cervical cancer and started radiation treatments immediately. Because of the cancer Henrietta couldn’t take care of Elsie, her oldest female child that epilepsy with her other four children. So Henrietta sent Elsie to the Crownsville State Hospital or, hospital for the negro insane until she died a little while after her mother at the age of 15. During one of her surgery’s, her doctor secretly took a slice of her tumor and gave it to Dr. George Gey, a scientist who was trying to find an “immortal cell”. Not only did Gey find what he was looking for, he found cells that grew at an abnormal rate.

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Henrietta was a victim of the unethical methods that took place at John Hopkins hospital. She was violated when they decided to take her cells without her permission, and she was never told that they had taken her cells before she passed away. After, Henrietta passed away her family suffered greatly. Her husband, Day, did not take care of the children well. Henrietta was the only one in the family who visited Elsie, who was at Crownsville State Hospital, which was an hour and a half south of Baltimore (Skloot 45).

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The primary ethical issue is that doctors took Henrietta Lacks’ cells without permission. Doctor Gey forgot the patient and focused his attention on the research.  Doctor Gey’s self- interest and quest for recognition allowed him to cross ethical boundaries.   He took advantage of Henrietta Lacks when she was sick, vulnerable and in need of medical attention therefore, one must question his moral judgment.

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Justine Rodriguez Robin Casady English 102: 010 September 19 2017 Acceptance Acceptance plays a huge role in today's world, it is being able to finally acquire information that you can’t fight or change. Throughout the book of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks acceptance is shown any many ways such as, Henrietta Lacks accepting that she has cancer, Henrietta accepts that she needs help with Elsie and sends her to the negro insane, and the Lacks family accepts that they won't ever get a dime for Henrietta's cells. First, Henrietta being able to accepting that she has cancer and along with her finally giving in and telling her family. After her visit to Hopkins, Henrietta went back to her usual routine, cleaning and cooking for her husband, their children, and feeding all of the many cousins each day.

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Doctors, one side of the coin they are viewed as the ones that can cure the sick with their knowledge, the ones that are supposed to help them get better. The other side they are feared and are avoided at all cost by some. Doctors have this bad reputation about them because sometimes they don’t even tell their patients what is wrong with them. Or the patients themselves don’t even question the doctors because they went to school and have a prestigious piece of paper. In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, she describes benevolent deception, which doctors had no trouble of doing in the mid-century, as the doctors keeping their patients in the dark.

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Racism in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Imagine your mother, sister, wife, or cousin was diagnosed with cervical cancer and you believed the doctors were doing everything in their power to help her. Only later you discovered her cells were used for research without consent and she was not properly informed of the risks of her treatment due to her race. This story happened and is told by Rebecca Skloot in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot use of narrative and her writing style enhances the understanding of the story. Henrietta Lacks was a young black woman who was diagnosed with cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital.

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1937 Words | 8 Pages

Doctors have been helping heal the sick since the begin of time, why where there not laws in place until 1974. Henrietta did not have the option, back in the 1951 when she first visited the hospital. In those days’ people were very uneducated especially colored people do to segregation, the majority believed and did whatever the doctors said. Henrietta race was very important at this time in history she was a colored woman. She was only treated in colored exam and procedure room in the hospital.

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There is a large controversy over ethics and the part that it plays in medicine. Where is the line between advancement and patient rights? The issue of tissue ownership and information ownerships is only one of the many problems that Henrietta and her family are stuck dealing with. But, before Rebekkah Skloot introduces the readers to Henrietta and her cells, Skloot opens with an epigraph from Elie Wiesel. By using Wiesel’s epigraph Skloot creates the tone for the rest of the novel.

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440 Words | 2 Pages

Rebecca Skloot develops the idea that poverty comes with many difficult situations, in the book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". True, Henrietta and her family were poor, could barely afford their medical bills, and they didn 't get the extended care that they deserved. You will learn how being poor can change your life and what is done with it . In the book, Henrietta 's daughter, Deborah, has many medical problems and she has to spend all her money on not even all her medicine.

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As a classification of social stratification, “people are ranked on the basis of achieved characteristics, such as merit, talent, ability, or past performance,” (Ferrante: 186). In all societies, no matter the difference in how they deem class, doctors are always placed at the top and are known to be well-respected in all communities. The doctors whom took Henrietta’s cells without permission did so because they ranked higher in class than she did. With their title as doctors and hers as a poor black woman, there was no reason to have her consent. Henrietta trusted the doctor because he was a doctor; that rank meant something in society, however this ignorance is what brought about the ongoing struggles the rest of the Lacks family were forced to deal with.

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An essential part of modern society relied on trust, especially the trust of doctors and scientists. People had the right to make an informed decision about their bodies and body parts. People had a right to their body parts, both attached and cell samples collected by doctors. The actions that the medical professions made will continue to affect future generations in both positive and negative ways. In the contemporary biographical novel, the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot used logical opinions to argue about the importance of consent to reveal the lack of morality from those in the medical field which continues to persist today.

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