The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca SklootMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book is about scientific research. It's about education. It's about technology. It's about race. It's about bioethics. It's about history. But above all it's about a woman named Henrietta Lacks who died of cervical cancer in the 1950s and the human and cellular family she left behind. I found this interesting as I had never heard of this woman, nor her cells. I purposefully wasn't a biology major in college just so I wouldn't have to take cell biology. I hate cell biology. It's hard. However, the bits of cell bio which are brought into this book are handled fairly well by the author. I did take away one star because there were two times the author was speaking on a particular scientific topic that I didn't really understand. If she couldn't get me-- the doctor in a medical field-- to understand what she was talking about, Joe Schmo Public sure didn't get it either. I do feel like Skloot made a good balance of the science-y parts and the human interest story of Henrietta and her family parts. I didn't ever get bored with either story within the story. Overall what I gained from this book is that we medical personnel need to stop and remember that our patients are human beings. Those human beings-- no matter their education, or lack there of-- can be made to understand their treatments and treatment options. As professionals, it is our responsibility to at least make the effort to get our patients to understand what is going on with themselves. And if we ourselves can't make the leap from our jargon-stuffed minds, ask another colleague to assist. Patient education is important to bedside manner, even if we can't bill for it half the time.
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