Nurses are always considered helpers and the profession is widely regarded as one for compassionate and helping individuals. The Nursing’s Social Policy Statement is a work that seeks to detail the many ways in which nurses can assist others. How nurses relate with the society is through a relationship. A relationship that is sort of a social contract complete with expectations from both sides. The relationship allows nurses to carry out their professional duties in the provision of care to individual clients and to the society. It also empowers nursing practitioners to engage in policymaking, legislative and political action for the purposes of improving the provision of care, improving nursing practice, improving nursing research, and improving nursing education. It also enables nurses to comprehend the concepts of justice and social ethics and the roles they play in individual and societal health (Fowler, 2015). This work discusses the nursing social contract with regards to Henrietta Lack’s story as detailed in Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Skloot, 2010).
Henrietta Lacks was a poor, undereducated, African American woman living in Baltimore in the 1940s. She was married and had five children with her husband who is named David. For quite some time, she was living with abdominal pain that she could not explain. In 1950, she decided enough was enough and asked her husband to take her to the Johns Hopkins Hospital. It was the only regional health facility where black people could get treatment for complicated conditions back then (Skloot, 2010).

After undergoing tests at the hospital, she was found to have cervical cancer. This was in the second month of 1951. She subsequently received radiation treatment under general anesthesia. Cervical radiation treatment was the gold standard intervention back then for the disease. Continuing research at the hospital by two physicians, George Gey and Richard TeLinde, plays an important role in Henrietta Lacks’ story. Gey was trying to develop and grow immortal cell lines in the lab for research, while TeLinde was a renowned cervical cancer doctor who at the time was investigating how cervical cancer types are related (Skloot, 2010; Stump, 2014). 

Just 21 days into utilizing Lacks’ cells for research, Gey made a breakthrough in his research. Lacks’ cells were special and enabled him to make the first immortal cell line from humans. He called them HeLa cells by combining the first two letters of Lacks’ first and second names (Stump, 2014). From then on, the cells have been used to develop cancer treatments, HPV vaccines, smallpox vaccines, and polio vaccines. They have also been utilized in over 80,000 studies and investigations. In the tenth month of 1951, Mrs. Lacks died. She died never knowing the significant role she played in advancing human medicine.

What does “Social Contract” Mean?

A social contract with regards to the nursing profession specifies how nurses and the society relate. It also specifies how nurses relate with one another. One can think of a social contract as one...…and their five children. Her family was never informed that her cells helped to launch a medical research industry worth billions of dollars and never got any compensation.

Lastly, the medical professionals failed the accountability test. For many years, medical professionals have recognized and embraced the fact that they are accountable to the people they treat or care for, to the society, and to each other (American Nurses Association, 2010). Accountability to individual patients should take the priority. The medical professionals caring for Mrs. Lacks should have focused all their resources on helping her rather than conducting research for posterity. This is a fact even though the end product of the research has subsequently helped many people (Quinlan, 2018).

Conclusion

Nurses and all other care providers have a social contract with the society. Through the contract, much is expected from them. They are expected to provide care, to be transparent, to be accountable, and to contribute to the society. In return, they get status, respect, financial benefits, recognition, and relevance from individuals and the society.

Mrs. Lacks story shows a case in point where medical professionals were not careful sustaining the unwritten rules of the social contract. Maybe it was because of her race. Maybe it was because of her financial status. Or maybe it was because things were lax back then. Nevertheless, the case shows a situation where the patient should have been given more control over their body and the professionals should have been more accountable to her.…