The Importance Of Ethical Medical Practices

For many, doctors and scientists are revered, their hospitals places where people can trust they will be cared for, where they can recover and heal. Scientists are heroes that spend their lives combating a seemingly infinite list of diseases and conditions, all for making a brighter, healthier future. Hospitals are places of hope. Through the basic description of their occupations, it seems as though such medical professionals can only be described as good citizens, so how is it that families like Henrietta Lacks ', a black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951, have such horrendous impressions of these doctors and scientists? The answer is simple: researchers walk a fine line of morality every day, and they sometimes stray from that line. The health care system, including both George Gey and Johns Hopkins, proves that it lacks ethos simply in its inability to view their patients as equals or worthy of certain rights.
The only component of ethos that the health care system does have is that of common sense; however, the way in which they use, or even abuse, this common sense leads to unethical practices against patients, especially those that are black. In 1951, "it was understood that black people didn 't question white people 's professional judgment" (63) because the doctors were far …show more content…
In 1951, hospitals were not strictly places of hope; they were also places of abused power granted by knowledge and education, deception passed off as kindness, hidden agendas, and general disregard for human lives. Through Henrietta Lacks’ experience it is unequivocally clear that the health care system, including both doctors and scientists of Johns Hopkins, does not have a good sense of ethos since it is severely lacking in both goodwill and moral