Henrietta Lacks Reflection

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I chose to write my Cultural Reflection assignment on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This book is about a young black lady, Henrietta Lacks, whose cells played an important part in medical research. Henrietta felt a lump on her cervix and was experiencing unexplained vaginal bleeding, so she decided to go to her doctor. He tested the knot for syphilis, but the results were negative and he sent to the gynecology clinic at John Hopkins. She was seen by Howard Jones, who did a biopsy of the mass on her cervix. It was then that she was diagnosed with Stage 1 epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix in 1951 at John Hopkins hospital. This was the only hospital within miles of her home that treated “colored” patients. If a “colored” person showed up a white only hospital, they would be sent away even if they were dying. …show more content…
I had always heard similar stories from my elders, but I found both of these behaviors surprising and appalling because people should be treated equally no matter what their skin color is. I had to step back and realize that this was in the 1950’s when blacks and whites were segregated. This is one of the many things that bothered me because I could not possibly imagine what it felt like to be treated as if I had an infectious disease. It really saddens me that my ancestors treated “colored” people this way and this type of behavior has been handed down from one generation to the next. I am sure that I have treated a “colored” person differently in my past, but it was not meant to be mean nor racist. While reading this book, I have realized that no one person is better than the next and I wish that we could all see each other as equals. This has taught me that I need to be more mindful of how I treat others, whether they are white or black. I know that we have made some improvements in this area, but we still have a long way to

Henrietta Lacks Reflection

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a book that caught me off guard, and going into the book I had no idea what to expect. The way the story of the Lacks family and the HeLa cell line evolved over time and through the course of the book was a new and interesting experience for me. Nonetheless, I knew going into this that it was nonfiction, and there was bound to be some emotional impact and thought provoking material within the book. The book was both informative, educational, and explored the…

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March 23, 2014 Henrietta Lacks – Moving Passage “Only thing he knew for sure, he said, was that there was something beautiful about the idea of slave owning white Lackses being buried under their black kin.” (Skloot 123) In chapter sixteen of the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the author Rebecca Skloot converses with Henrietta’s good cousin as she visits Henrietta’s grave. She learns that the Lacks family was originally from a slaveholding white family, and that the black portion…

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EMRAP 14 March 2024 “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” Reflection "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" sheds light on the hidden narrative of Henrietta Lacks and her “immortal” HeLa cells, which profoundly impacted the practices in the field of medical research. Taking place during the era of Jim Crow Laws, Henrietta Lacks was a poor African American woman who was being treated for cervical cancer at John Hopkins University. Before treatment, Henrietta signed a consent to treatment form, allowing…

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“Take care of them kids, don't let 'em forget about me.”—As she lay on her deathbed. These would be the last words spoken by Henrietta Lacks before she died from cervical cancer. Who knew that from these words, Rebecca Skloot's book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” would follow the life of Henrietta Lacks, a young African American woman diagnosed with cervical cancer, who went in for cancer treatment, cells were extracted from her tumor without her awareness. From these very cells, known as…

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The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks Essay

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2011). Author’s Name: Rebecca Skloot – Publisher Course: Cell Biology Instructor: Dr. Hari Kotturi Due Date: May 1, 2024 Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2011) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2011) by Rebecca Skloot is an award-winning book depicting the beauty and the complexity of scientific discovery. The masterpiece has been recognized in notable awards such as the National Academies Best Book of the Year in 2011…

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PBH 205 Reflection paper 2

Reflection paper #2 PBH 205 Mary Anderson September 24, 2014 Anderson 1 Mary Anderson PBH 205 Professor Bungum September 24, 2014 Reflection #2 In these next few chapters of the book, I found out a lot more to the whole story then I thought I would. Already learning from the previous chapters how Henrietta was affected by this disease she had and seeing how the doctors and specialist were handling it, they now started to talk about the after math and what benefit Henrietta Lacks body was…

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