Americas : The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Woodley and Its Residents (Images of America: Washington, DC) | 
 | 80% Recommended by our customers.
Catalog:
Manufacturer: Crown
Release Date: 2010-02-02
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $26.00
Our Price: $14.19
Used Price: $15.49
(all prices are subject to changes)
More Details
Amazon international :
| |
- ISBN13: 9781400052172
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
|
|
 All Medical Field Students put THIS book on your reading list!
As a medical laboratory technologist who worked in the field for 40 years, including 25 years at a large teaching university hospital, I cannot stress strongly enough that THIS BOOK IS A MUST READ FOR ALL MEDICAL FIELD STUDENTS!
The medical world is full of discovery, cure, treatment, heartache but always there are opportunities to do things better. It is far too easy to slip into a world of routine where patients become 'names' or worse yet 'numbers' or are known by their diagnosis. How often do we in the medical world hear 'have you got the lab results back yet on 'my' bowel resection?' or 'heard about your new leukemia...bummer'.
ALL patients are people first; patients second. They are someone's mother, daughter, co-worker, friend, child. I used to look at a vial of blood sent to our lab to be tested and think, 'this is not just blood...it is the life fluid of someone's father...it could be MY father'. To not think this way would make me guilty of the robot-like attitude that many adopt and exhibit.
This book put a name, a face and a family to what I...no, what WE...only knew as 'HeLa' cells. These cells changed the face of medicine, research, treatment and medical ethics forever. Henrietta changed the face of medicine, research, treatment and medical ethics forever. She and her family deserve respect and recognition for their part. This book is a wake up call.
If you're a student entering medical school, nursing school or in the paramedical careers, do yourself, and all your patients for years to come, a real favour and read this book. You will never, ever refer to a tissue, vial of blood or Room #34 as 'your bowel resection' ever again. And you will be a much better medical professional for that.
Incredible story, told like a novel. Amazing!!
I could not put this book down. I have NO time to read and I could not stop opening this book whenever I had a spare minute. The story is so tragic but so important for us all to know. The book is well written and reads like a novel. I read the "one star" reviews and could not disagree more. The author clearly respects the subjects a great deal and devoted a good portion of her life to doing this research. I am so glad Mrs. Lacks is getting the recognition she deserves. Truly compelling read that brings up some fascinating bio-ethical issues.
A Lengthy, but Worthwhile, Important Story
A story that needs to be told so that we are aware of the price that the advancement of medicine has cost. The story is so interesting and brings up so many ethical conflicts between whether human cells, blood, fluids, etc. still belong to the individual once they have been excised from the body. It's so unclearly defined that I still have yet to really decide what I believe.
Regardless, what was done to Henrietta was certainly an "injustice" but we can't forget that what was done happened in the 1950s. There is no question there would be lawsuits to boot in the 21st century over such things, but these laws didn't exist back and then and certainly not for the black community. It's unfortunate and unfair and it makes you sick to think about, but we can't go back and undo all the wrongs that have been done to every person in the history of the world. We wouldn't know how to learn from our mistakes if we were able to do that.
I do think it is important to honor Henrietta Lacks and her family, above all. To be grateful for her contribution, though through non-consent, to medical science. It's important to take heart that she has saved likely millions and millions of lives because of vaccines and cures found through medical research on her cells.
If we were to go back to the 1950s and ask Henrietta on her dying bed if she would want her cells to go on to help cure endless illness and save millions of lives, I guess I would have a hard time saying that she wouldn't say yes. The problem is that she wasn't asked.
It's a sticky wicket, so it's certainly worth the read. Very informative and well-researched. You cannot doubt Rebecca Skloot's credibility. I would have preferred to read about the story in a lengthy journal article, rather than a 370+ page book.
The Tragedy and Triumph of the Search for Cures
In the 1950's a relatively young African American woman entered Johns Hopkins Hospital suffering from cervial cancer. A doctor took a swipe of her cancerous cells and cultured them. Unlike other cells, these did not die shortly after being cultured; instead, they multiplied at an amazing rate. The woman whose cells were used was Henrietta Lacks. She died soon after that, leaving five young children, as her cancer had spread rapidly. Neither she nor her family initally knew of how and why her cells were sampled or what they were used for. In this work, journalist Rebecca Skloot fills in all the details, from the Lacks family history, to the medical staff who were involved at first and those who later used the "HeLa" cells to further culture techniques or to conduct research and create vaccines, to the shysters and other characters who played bit or important roles in the story. Skloot covers not only the larger story but also her own involvement with the main source of her facts, Deborah Lacks, one of Henrietta's daughters. Skloot does this without losing objectivity, allowing for the perspectives from all sides on the controversies surrounding not only HeLa cells, but the also the whole larger issue of what rights people have over their own cells. The story is most moving at points when the Lacks family, particularly Deborah, encounter revelations about how her mother lived and who she was, giving Henrietta the humanity and dignity which her family had sought to restore after all those years of ignorance and misinformation. A truly fascinating read that links together the raw facts of the human condition with the sublime motivations to find answers to medical problems.
good read
this was a very interesting and informative book. it was easy to read and hard to put down
|
|
|
