I have been perusing the most recent news in regards to Cassandra C., the high schooler with Hodgkin's lymphoma who denied treatment yet was constrained into accepting it by a Connecticut Preeminent Court administering. As a mother and a bioethicist, these are the times while accommodating my own feelings with my expert experience can be generally testing. A large portion of my "mother" companions were stunned and astonished by the picture of a young lady being limited to a bed, compelled to experience treatment. They had dreams of a shouting tormented young lady, a mother vulnerable to spare her youngster, and "enormous sibling" apportioning toxin to a blameless young lady spun through our aggregate personality.
From a morals stance, it
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Then again, we do now and then settle on the choice to command care, especially when youngsters are included. The inquiry turns out to be: how does one deal with the privileges of kids and of folks, while additionally keeping up the obligation of the state to ensure …show more content…
I trust science, and I confide in myself to be a basic mastermind. I trust that there are sure medicinal services issues that ought to be commanded – immunizations, for one – on the grounds that the science is clear (and the data against it is totally broken and twisted by media sensations like Jenny McCarthy). I likewise trust that I have an ethical obligation to deal with my group, and that incorporates my youngster. Once in a while that will oblige me to do things that are uncomfortable, against my inclination, and that might even bring about my girl torment, however it is still the best thing to do. Not for me, but rather for her.
All in all, for this situation, I return to a solitary inquiry: Why? On the off chance that I could comprehend why Cassandra foregoed chemotherapy, and in the event that I could trust that her mom was considering "in the best enthusiasm" of her youngster, then I would be more alright with the choice to reject care. Until then, I trust that Cassandra carries on with a long and solid life. I additionally trust that Cassandra, her mom, the therapeutic foundation, and the bioethics group keep on having this discussion in light of the fact that our work here is unquestionably a long way from
Another example of this construct not met in the case of Henrietta Lacks was the lack of compassionate care. Patient experiences can be improved if healthcare professionals act with compassion and dedication to serve patients and promote their well-being. Henrietta suffered so much pain and complained about the discomfort as complicated by the disease process, but her complaints were ignored; instead, her doctors wrote just the opposite of what she complained about stating, “the patient states that she feels fairly well” and continued, “no evidence of recurrence” (Skloot, 2010, p.63). This is an example of deception, lack of compassion and outright contradiction to professionalism and commitment to the primacy of the patient.
In the mid-1900’s as opposed to today’s world, consent was not needed for tests to be performed on one’s body and used for experiments or research. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, written by Rebecca Skloot, focuses on one of the most famous medical breakthroughs which used cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, an African American cancer patient, without her consent. Henrietta had Stage I Cervical cancer and was being treated at Johns Hopkins hospital. Henrietta was treated as a science experiment; she went through harsh forms of radiation and her cancer cells were extracted from her body and used for research. George Gey was the first to discover that her cancer cells were unique due to the fact that they never died.
The book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is full of different perspectives on a significant event. Rebecca Skloot explains the process of african american Henrietta Lacks’s cancer from her point of view along with the doctor’s and the Lacks family’s. Skloot included many issues from the current time period. She heavily addresses the fact that informed consent was not a priority to doctors and scientists and the effect of the abuses that occurred.
In Rebecca Skloot’s pioneering non-fiction book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the complex story about the revolutionary HeLa cancer cells is told through the lives of the Lacks family and the multiple scientists and doctors that were part of one of the greatest breakthroughs of medical research in the twentieth century. The tale of the infamous and immortal HeLa cells was not just a scientific one, but one that involved struggle, confusion, ethical transgressions, and legal issues. Skloot writes about the life of Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cancer cells as well as her own research endeavor. Henrietta grew up with a very large family who all lived together and sometimes married internally. She eventually married and had kids with her first cousin, David. As an adult, Henrietta suffered from what she called a “knot” in her cervix, medically being cervical cancer. It all started when she started receiving cancer treatment from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. John Gey had used cells from the tumor for medical research. At the age of 31, Henrietta died from her fatal disease, leaving her cells behind to continue her legacy. Despite the fact that her cells were researched throughout the world, the Lacks family was still living in extreme poverty with little to no opportunities for advanced education. Johns Hopkins conveyed limited information about Henrietta’s cells to her family to the extent that some family members did not even understand what a cell
In her book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot opens up the story about an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks, the unfair and unethical treatment she underwent in Hopkins hospital, and the discovery of the immortal HeLa cells (Skloot, 2010). Skloot (2010) also includes stories about multiple other patients who experienced unfair and unethical treatment from their doctors. This paper will provide an ethical analysis of the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, to depict the major unethical actions made (which breached The Belmont Report’s principles) toward the patients and family of the patients as well as discuss its overall relevance to nursing care we do today as compared to the way it was done during Henrietta Lacks’ days.
When Henrietta signs the form, she is unaware of the types of procedures that doctors can perform under her “consent” or the damaging effects the operation could have on her body, seeing as doctors never clarified the possible side effects of her procedure. In reference to Henrietta’s treatment, the author states, “Toward the end of her treatments, Henrietta asked her doctor when she'd be better so she could have another child. Until that moment, Henrietta didn't know that the treatments had left her infertile”. Furthermore, this quote demonstrates the harmful effects of poor communication between patient and doctor, in that Henrietta had been ill-informed of possible side effects before the operation. In addition, if Henrietta had been aware of this knowledge, she may have opted for a different treatment plan or refused treatment, which may have changed the outcome considerably. While Henrietta did sign the consent form agreeing to any necessary procedures, she never imagined that her cells would be used to create a multi-million dollar industry for research, all without the knowledge or consent of her or her family. While consent forms today still contain minor flaws, they have improved greatly since Henrietta’s time to ensure the patient’s rights are
The concept of informed consent that we have today did not exist in the 1950s when Henrietta’s cells were obtained. Patients were regularly used in research without their knowledge. Nevertheless, some doctors had unethical standards. Dr. Chester Southam, a credible researcher of cancer, developed a theory that “the cancer was caused by either a virus or an immune system deficiency” (Skloot 128) and the bodies of patients’ who had suffered with cancer in the past would reject the HeLa cells. He tested the patients and “he said nothing about injecting them with someone else’s malignant cells” (Skloot 128). Southam believed that revealing details to patients would create a “phobia and ignorance” (Skloot 130) in their mind. He injected “more than six hundred people for his research, about half of them cancer patients” (Skloot 129), telling them “he was testing their immune systems” (Skloot 128). Southam expanded with his experiments on testing
The conversation of consent to medical research of one’s tissues is critical due to the increasing number of discoveries in the field of medicine. In the 1950s, Johns Hopkins Hospital encountered one example of an ethical problem regarding education in the realm of medical research. Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks does well in elaborating on this conflict. This true story involves an African American woman who, while undergoing treatment for cervical cancer, has her cells extracted from her without permission. Skloot achieves a more personal level of the story by describing the lives of Henrietta’s children, then and now, in addition to the story of Henrietta herself. Unfortunately, the Lacks family had a poor
This idea was blatantly ignored with the treatment of Henrietta and many others. Henrietta was a living, breathing, human being, that deserved equivalent treatment. She was instead, dehumanized into cells, her privacy invaded, and her family permanently damaged from the experience. Henrietta was not immortal. In reality, “Henrietta died at 12:15 a.m. on October 4, 1951” (86). From the unethical treatment she received to the blatant disregard for empathy with regard to her deathly illness, Henrietta was maltreated. John Moore’s case exposes the widespread nature of this problem. “It was very dehumanizing to be thought of as Mo,” claims Moore (201). “...I was Mo, I was the cell line, like a piece of meat” (201). John Moore endured the same as Henrietta. Both viewed as abstractions, their truths ignored. They both, however, hold a triumph. They contributed to the betterment of society, and helped to advance medical practices and cured countless
The appellant of the Cruzan v. Missouri case was the parents of Nancy Cruzan, Joe Cruzan and Joyce Cruzan. The Cruzans argued that when they made the decision to hook Nancy up to a feeding and hydration tube they were unaware that Nancy would be in the vegetative state permanently, they thought she would make it (Cruzan by Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health. (n.d.). Oyez. Retrieved December 8, 2015, from https://www.oyez.org/cases/1989/88-1503).
Goldman’s critique of medical paternalism demonstrates the right for patient autonomy and decision to choose a treatment best suited to their needs and interests. Initially, physicians would not announce any form of cancer to their patients, as it was believed to result in physiological distress. Luckily, medical paternalism continues to be rejected in medical situations; the topics of outcomes research, scientific evidence, and court decisions help correct patient decisions on the best treatment.
But instead, it seems that what they are doing is feeding on each other hope. For example, patients remain hopeful that doctors can cure their diseases and doctors are hopeful that technology can deliver these changes to their patients. However, by feeding on their unrealistic hope, physicians enter without knowing into this vicious cycle for pushing for harsher and unrealistic means or treatments that endanger in the process the patient’s sense of dignity. That said, Susan ‘s physicians and his son, at one point, were victims of this cycle because they allowed, instead of alleviate the pain in Susan’s
But children are a special case they cannot always stand up for themselves. They therefore need a special set of rights which take in to consideration their vulnerability and which ensures the adults that surround them take responsibly for their welfare, protection and development.
The social contract of nursing is important because it reflects the nursing's code of ethics, which is to provide care to all who are in need, regardless of their cultural, social, or economic standing. The social contract exists because we rely on a guideline to continue to provide ethical care that is within our scope of practice. Unfortunately, in Rebecca Skloot’s (2010) book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” there were many ethical violations throughout the whole process about the Henrietta Lacks’ cells (HeLa). The author reveals the story about the life of Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman who was diagnosed with a fast-growing cervical cancer at a young age. The cells retrieved from her cervical tumor became the first immortal cell that could survive in the lab and replicate continuously without dying. Without the consent of Henrietta Lacks and her family, these cells later became key components to the development of many groundbreaking inventions such as the polio vaccine and in vitro fertilization. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the social covenant of nursing in relation to the ethical issues behind the use of the HeLa cells without the patient’s and her family’s consent.
In April 2016, Cassandra reported that she has a mass in her lungs and posted a picture of her CT scan on Facebook (“Teenager Forced Into Cancer Treatment,” 2017). She is 18 now and states she is “moving forward with alternative treatments” (“Teenager Forced Into Cancer Treatment,” 2017). If this is true, in Cassandra’s case, the end did not justify the means, no matter how well-intentioned.