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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay

543 Words3 Pages

When I was thirteen years old, I knew I wanted to go into the medical field. Personally, I felt that that was my passion: to help people. Last year, while I was looking at the course catalog, I saw the words Ethics: Law, Business, and Medicine. Once I saw “medicine,” I put the class as my number one choice. Once I found out we were going to read “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” I was interested but didn’t know how it could help me in the future. As we began to read it, I became intrigued with the Lacks’ life rather than the science behind the cells. (This is going to be a little backstory before I explain how this book impacted me.) This past summer, I started to volunteer at Kapiolani Medical Center in the Patient’s Playroom. My …show more content…

I realized that I became more focused on the patient’s rather than my own personal gain. Then, one day, it hit me. As we were reading about Henrietta’s treatment as a patient, I was infuriated at the fact that these doctors and scientists weren’t giving Henrietta and her family the treatment, recognition, money, health-care, and equality they deserved. Even though I couldn’t imagine the hardship their family went through, I put my foot into the patient’s shoes. Reading about the pain and poverty Henrietta’s family went through, after her death, I kept thinking that if the doctors treated Henrietta equally, there could’ve been a chance of her survival. As I volunteered and continued to read, I began to see the kids I played with differently. I didn’t just see them for their disease or complications, but I saw their heart, and the joy they felt just by doing simple things. I started to imagine their families and wondered what they might be going through, having a child live in a hospital. I kept remembering how confused and misled the Lacks’ family was with the health care system, and even though, I’m not a doctor, I hoped the best for the patient’s well-being and their

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In the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks chapter 23 “It’s Alive” it talks about Bobbette Lacks. Bobbette Lacks, Henrietta’s daughter-in-law, had dinner at her friend's house when she found out that her friend had been working with HeLa cells. While in disbelief, Bibbette asked Gardenia why no one had told Henrietta's family that the part of her was still alive. Dr. McKusick, a scientist who first published Henrietta’s name, had access to Henrietta’s children and husband’s medical records.

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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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In Disney princess movies we often find that in order for the viewer to effectively sympathize with and care about the main character, bad things must happen to good people, and these bad things are made as awful as they possibly can be for the viewer to really and truly care for the character. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a biography by Rebecca Skloot, Skloot uses a pathos appeal in order to almost force the reader to sympathize with the characters, namely Deborah. Though Skloot masterfully pulls at the reader’s heartstrings throughout the book, she does so especially when Deborah passes away. The reader find that on the day of Deborah’s death, Sonny had come to check on Deborah, as he always does, to find her with her arms folded

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Multiple times throughout the book it was mentioned that Henrietta’s biopsy took place 60 years ago and a lot of changes have been made to science and ethics. This book did a good job bringing up ethics in science and scientific achievements that have been made over the years, but in some ways it was sensationalized to get the family the recognition they feel they deserved. As a poor, black family, the Lacks’ were discriminated against. Even the medical treatments they received were often not the best treatments offered and they were often experimented on. Having the fear of being mistreated and used for experimentation made the Lacks’ even more upset about Henrietta’s death.

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The book summarizes her life and family, her cells, and their significance to science. Skloot successfully argues that Lacks’s cells became a scientific marvel, being used world wide, which her family had absolutely no knowledge of. The background of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks all comes back to an eager

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is much more unique than any other books I read before this. The books involves with the Henrietta Lacks who has cervical cancer that turns to be non operational. Henrietta eventually dies, until to be autopsy for research and finding a vaccine for polio. I wasn’t only surprised by what happened to Henrietta, but, only to find out what happened to her children, such as Elsie, Joe, and Deborah. I was shocked to read about how Elsie died and where she died.

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Achieved Immortality A common human terror, is the fear of being forgotten. This explains the human fascination with achieving immortality, as seen in innumerable cultures throughout history. Although countless people desperately try to become immortal, only a few actually succeed, and often unintentionally, or not in the way he or she might have fancied. Such is the case of Henrietta and Deborah Lacks.

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There are many citizens out in the world and each one has a purpose in life whether they approve or disapprove, but it is worse having it stolen from you and not being compensated or receiving recognition for the contribution made for a better future. Henrietta Lacks was an African American woman with cervical cancer and while undergoing radioactive therapy, she has her cells stolen from her. She died not knowing the truth and numerous years later, her family is shocked to find out the truth. The knowledge acquired by reading this enthralling novel is how the medical procedures were conducted during the time period of when Henrietta Lacks was undergoing medical attention for her tumor. The doctor stole Henrietta’s cells without her

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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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