Analysis Of Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

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Recommended: Disparity in health care between blacks and whites

The book Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot is indeed an inspiring story that affects many lives both directly and indirectly. It brings tears to my eyes each time I read this book. This is a broad scope of concept that reveals the dilemma of medical practices with respect to ethical and cultural sensitivity. It got me thinking with a whole new thoughts and questions that remained unanswered. However, it has changed my philosophy of practice to see each individual as a new book to explore in other words treat every person as an individual with different background and upbringing not to treat just the disease. I have come to understand that there is no manual or principle one should read when it comes to ethical issues,
Due to the fact that some people are less privileged when it comes to access to care. We found out that a lot of people have less resources probably because of race or living in a community where it is difficult to access resources. An example of a group of people experiencing this is the African American. This is very challenging to the African American community because it affects the quality of care they receive in the society. In this book “The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks” the specialist said her cervical cancer, “Either Henrietta’s doctors had missed it during her last exams which seemed impossible.” This shows the indifference her providers might have
In addition, the most vulnerable citizen Henrietta, has now become a significant person to the field of medicine. In the book, Skloot uncovers the reality of Henrietta’s family and also the experiments that took place at John Hopkins on how black people were treated. The question still remains that “Is it fair to all concern?
Henrietta went through radiation therapy after receiving a diagnosis of a tumor in her cervix.
The most frustrating thing is without her permission, they took samples of her tumor and gave to Dr. Gey who later named them “HeLa” cells. Which is indeed against the code of ethics in medical science.
I can imagine what it is like to feel helpless in a situation like this, when human life is taken for granted. In 1951, Dr. George Gey cultured the cells and they were the first “immortal” human cell produces. HeLa cells were used for research in many ways as cancer, polio, AIDS and so on.

I also noticed that a lot of African Americans encountered unequal treatment from healthcare providers. Henrietta’s daughter Elsie, had mental disorder died mainly because the doctors perform some kind of experiment on her. So they were afraid of going to see the doctors believing that they may die if they were in the

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