Answer the following discussion questions, citing specific details from the passage.
Chapter 7: Why was the development of an "immortal" cell line like HeLa potentially so important to medical research?
Chapter 8:How did the elevated status of doctors in the 1950s affect the quality of the medical care they gave to their patients, both positively and negatively?
Chapter 9: What is your impression of Turner Station and the people who live there?
Chapter 10: Why does the author mention the radio program that playing in the background when she was talking with Cootie?
Chapter 11: What is your reaction to the medical decisions regarding blood transfusions and discontinuing cancer treatment for Henrietta Lacks?
Chapter 12: How did the Lacks cousins interpret the sudden storm during Henrietta's funeral? Do you agree?
Chapter 13: Why is standardization of procedures considered so critical to scientific research? How can that standardization also limit the growth of research?
Chapter 14: What do you think of journalists trying to find out Henrietta's name and contact her family for their stories?
Macaria Surratt Chapter 14: Honestly, I believe that it was a good idea to contact Henrietta’s family for information and find out her name. The HeLa cells were booming across the nation, but no recognition was given to Henrietta or her family. The scientists and researchers using her cells should have known about her, because if it wasn’t for Henrietta, then there probably wouldn’t be HeLa cells. However, using a false name in the Minneapolis Star was disrespectful to Henrietta and her family. The public had the right to know where the cells originated from, and Henrietta’s family deserve to be compensated for Henrietta’s fortune from her HeLa cells.
ReplyDeleteI agree! I believe that the family should be compensated for the cells because they have been a big help to science.
DeleteHonestly, I believe that it was a good idea to contact Henrietta’s family for information and find out her name. The HeLa cells were booming across the nation, but no recognition was given to Henrietta or her family. The scientists and researchers using her cells should have known about her, because if it wasn’t for Henrietta, then there probably wouldn’t be HeLa cells. However, using a false name in the Minneapolis Star was disrespectful to Henrietta and her family. The public had the right to know where the cells originated from, and Henrietta’s family deserve to be compensated for Henrietta’s fortune from her HeLa cells.
ReplyDeleteI agree. The family should have been recognized for Henrietta's contributions.
DeleteKiara Rainer Chapter 11: I could not understand why I felt this awkward feeling as I read this part of the chapter when they had stopped all of her treatments and transfusions. I thought the doctors were being a bit careless about her, but at the same time, they realized that she was close to dying. Also, they possibly realized that the cancer treatments were making things worse for her. She wasn't feeling any better no matter what they tried. She was constantly wailing in pain and more tumors kept appearing all inside her body. I was stuck in between the feelings of the doctors not truly taking care of her and them just trying to ease her pain before she died.
ReplyDeleteDeciding whether to continue a patient's treatment is always a tough decision,but it is a decision that must be made. I think it was a combination of the doctors caring about Henrietta but at the same time,not caring
DeleteChapter 9: What is your impression of Turner Station and the people who live there?
ReplyDeleteOnce Rebecca arrived in the town, her next destination was Speed’s Grocery Store in hopes of learning more about Henrietta and actually talking to her family. When Rebecca arrived at Speed’s, she noticed how welcoming and family-oriented the men were who sat outside on the porch of Speed’s Grocery Store. An impression one might receive from the people living in Tuner Station is that the people are friendly, welcoming, have close-knit family-oriented relations with one another, and down-to-earth people because they had no problem accepting Rebecca when she arrived.
Great observation!
Delete8. In the 1950s, “doctors knew best” and patients did not question their judgment, especially black patients. In a time of segregation and discrimination, most black patients were glad to be receiving any kind of treatment. Thus, the “white people’s professional judgment” was never questioned. This belief that doctors knew best was positive in that it probably allowed doctors to see more patients in a day back then. Without having to explain everything a patient did not understand, doctors could use the collective time to see more people. This was a time where medicine was still advancing. The notion of “doctors knew best” gave more credibility to medicine and encouraged more people with ailments and infliction to seek professional help. However, the notion also had a negative impact. Not only did patients not ask questions, but doctors and hospital never encouraged them to inquire more. It was common for a doctor to go as far as to withhold important information concerning their patient simply because they believed it was best not to confuse them with terms they might not understand. Some even didn’t give a diagnosis at all. Thus, more than often patients never fully knew about their conditions. As implied by the book, doctors believed that they actually knew best concerning their patient, which is never completely true. Take Henrietta’s case for example; after she started her treatments, she continued to complain about the lower pain in her abdominal. However, because doctors found no evidence indicating pain, they did not seriously consider her complaints. Even before the “lump” in Henrietta was discovered, she complained about the pain to her doctor only to be dismissed. So she took matters into her own hands and located the sore. She visited the doctor’s office again and gave him indisputable proof. However, by this time she had already started to develop cancer. The same thing occurred at Hopkins. Henrietta’s complaints were dismissed until her cancer got worse.
ReplyDelete10. Skloot most likely mentions the preacher on the radio station as an indication of how spiritual the Lacks family is and its role in topics concerning Henrietta and her cells. The family was told nothing about HeLa. With no medical information and scientific background, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the Lacks family turned to spiritual and religious explanations. As a result of this Cootie, like many Lacks, believed the “spirit got Henrietta” or that she was the victim of a voodoo curse.
Chapter 8: It's really disheartening to know that doctors didn't really listen to patients back then. A lot of ailments could've been prevented if the doctors listened.
DeleteChapter 10: I agree.
Deja McIntosh
ReplyDeleteChapter 7: Why was the development of an "immortal" cell line like HeLa potentially so important to medical research? The development of an Immortal cell line like HeLa was important to medical research because it allowed scientist to perform excitements that would never be possible to do on a living human being. Some of there research included using the cells to find out ways to kill malignant cells without killing the healthy ones.
Ch.7: The development of the immortal cell line similar to HeLa was important to medical research because scientist all over were able to research and experiment on these cells in a way that was not possible on living people. Immortal cells allowed scientist to run different test that they could not perform on living people.
ReplyDelete7. The HeLa cells never stopped growing. He said that his lab was using the cells to find ways to stop cancer. It is possible that from fundamental studies such as these that he will be able to learn a way by which cancer cells can be damaged or completely wiped out. Researchers and scientists could use them for part of their research and study them. That's exactly what Gey did, he began sending them to any scient who might use them for cancer research. HeLa cells can help with many diseases, such as the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, and in-vitro fertilization. These scientists could become one step closer helping to find the cures and treatments to diseases using these cells, once they had them. The experiments that the scientists performed on the cells would have been impossible with regular living human cells. If the cells died in the process of experimenting, they could just go back to their eternally growing HeLa that they had.
ReplyDeleteThis is true,do you agree with the method of obtaining Henrietta's cells?
DeleteI think that it was a good idea to try to find out Henrietta's name and get the stories from the family. When studying the material and coming into contact with one of the greatest contributions to medical history, I feel that it would be great to get the family's inside for better understanding. You will have better insight on who Henrietta truly was and her life in general. The family lived with her so they could offer information of the person she was and how she dealt with her illness and maintain her life as a wife and mother. Knowing this inside information is valuable to the journalist as they write and report on the life of Henrietta.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree.
Delete11. The doctors had done everything that they could but Henrietta was not getting any better. It has two sides to it. I know they had to stop the blood tranfusions and medication that they were giving her, but her family probably would not have thought about it that way. If that was my mother, I know I would want them to do anything possible that they could to save her and I would not understand why would they stop what they were giving her. The doctors could have kept on giving her the medication.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your observation.
DeleteChapter 8: How did the elevated status of doctors in the 1950s affect the quality of the medical care they gave to their patients, both positively and negatively?
ReplyDeleteIn the 1950s, Doctors were considered all-knowing and most patients wouldn’t dream of questioning them. Doctors practiced “benevolent deception”—withdrawing significant information from patients about the diagnosis and leaving the patients with little to no understanding of the diagnosis. Some of the feeble excuses were doctors “believed it was best not to confuse or upset patients” with difficult medical terminology. The belief that “Doctors knew best” had a positive side because patients rarely questioned the doctor’s prognosis. They followed the doctor’s diagnosis and did what the doctor told them to do which saved a lot of time. Doctor spent less time convincing the patient why to do something and they were able to see more patients. There were more cons than pros. This belief affected patients negatively because even when they feel a need to question their doctor, the doctor would not listen. Most doctors from the 1950s, clearly believed they knew the best so they end up ignoring the patient’s complains. Henrietta Lacks’s case is a clear example of the negative impact. Even when she complained about the cancer spreading the doctors dismissed her notions.
These are good opinions of how the elevated status of doctors affected medical care positively and negatively.
DeleteChapter 7: The development of what they call the "immortal" cell line was very important to medical research because it gave researches plenty of cells to work with. With so many cells available, researches " will be able to learn a way by which cancer cells can be damaged or completely wiped out." If scientists tested out certain methods that did not have a desirable result, they could just go back to the so-called "immortal" cell stock and start all over with no worries of running out of material to test on.
ReplyDeleteExactly. In addition to not running out of testing material, they would also have more accurate results.
DeleteChapter 7. Why was the development of an "immortal" cell line like HeLa potentially so important to medical research?
ReplyDeleteBecause in the observation of cells and the development of knowledge and treatments, it is not only necessary to see the end result of invasion or treatment, but also the process of the reaction of cells to these treatments. Such research takes years of repeated experiments. If they had had to rely upon a continually changing base of cell lines, it would have been impossible to confirm or compare results or reactions of cells to different treatments. If one treatment seemed to have better results but was administered to different cells, it would have been impossible to determine if the difference was in the treatment or the cells themselves. An "immortal" cell line also ensured that results were reproducible under identical conditions. It also gave researchers a "do-over" switch, allowing theories to be studied persistently rather than discarded after a single failure.
Chapter 8. How did the elevated status of doctors in the 1950's affect the quality of the medical care they gave to their patients, both positively and negatively?
The high stature of the medical profession gave doctors the unfettered ability to "think outside the box" in terms of procedures and treatments. They could try anything that they thought might work, regardless of the risk/benefit ratio. Even if they only chose a given treatment option to prove that it didn't work, as in not treating African Americans known to have syphilis. Therein lies the negative: When you elevate someone so high that everyone else is beneath them, they tend to treat those beneath them as unimportant and expendable. The research becomes more important than the subjects, and the ends always seem to justify the means.
Chapter 7: I love your insight. Having immortal cells were ideal for scientists at this time.
DeleteChapter 8: I agree with your opinions on this topic.
Chapter 12: How did the Lacks cousins interpret the sudden storm during Henrietta's funeral? Do you agree?
ReplyDeleteLacks' family interpreted the storm during Henrietta's funeral as Henrietta trying to contact them. They felt that Henrietta was putting up a fight when leaving this world with those cells. According to Henrietta's cousin Peter, " Hennie never was what you call a beat-around-the-bush woman, we shoulda knew she was tryin to tell us somenthin with that storm" (Skloot 12.) In my opinion, a storm of that magnitude probably would have caused me to believe that some supernatural activity was going. WIth the timing of the storm, I more than likely would have thought the same thing as Henrietta's family. I would have thought she was trying to communicate with us one last time.
This could be true. Maybe Henrietta was trying to let them know that something unethical was being done with her cells.
DeleteChapter 12: How did the Lacks cousins interpret the sudden storm during Henrietta's funeral? Do you agree?
ReplyDeleteThe Lacks cousins interpreted the storm as Henrietta trying to say something to them. When putting Henrietta coffin into the grave, a sudden storm struck. I honestly feel as though it could have just started to storm, but I understand why the Lacks cousin felt as though Henrietta was trying to contact them.