The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot

In the reading of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”, the author Rebecca Skloot makes it well known that Henrietta Lacks, while a patient at John Hopkins Hospital samples of her cells was taken from her without her or her family’s knowledge or consent. We are made aware of this on page 33 “though no one had told Henrietta that TeLinde was collecting samples or asked if she wanted to be a donor — Wharton picked up a sharp knife and shaved two dime sized pieces of tissue from Henrietta’s cervix”. As a health professional, you are violating that patients’ rights and in this case the Lacks right to privacy were violated. The way that the lacks family’s right to privacy was the fact that Henrietta’s cells often referred to as the HeLa cells

In the reading of Skloot, the big issue is the taking of Henrietta’s cells without her or family’s knowledge which is a violation of something very important and secret to Americans. The right to privacy is so important because a patient needs to know that a hospital, doctor, and nurse can be trusted with their medical information whether it is a small medical issue, or something major and embarrassing. You want to know that that information is not going to be out for the world to know or that information is going to be used somewhere else without your knowledge. In Provision 1 of the Guide to the Code of Ethics for Nurses, it is stated that “worth or value that people have simply because they are human not by virtue of any social standing, ability to evoke admiration, or any particular set of talents, skills, or powers.” (Flower, pp.8) This means that people have a worth or value just because they are human no matter their race, social status, or religion. And I believe with this, Henrietta was not looked at with worth or value simply because she was black so Dr. Wharton did not feel like he needed to brief her on the fact he was taking her cells because he did not see her with worth or value because of her skin color, versus if it were a white woman. On page 52, Provision 3 states that “ The nurse acts to safeguard the patient when his care and safety are affected by incompetent, unethical, or illegal conduct of any person” so when Wharton was told by TeLinde to take samples of cells from unknowing African American women, and justifying it by saying it can be their form of payment. Wharton should have taken a stand and let it be known that it was not right and that these woman should be respected as any other nonwomen of color. All it takes is one corrupt or bad apple in the health field or hospital for people not to trust nurses and