Go Big Read-Health Sciences Program

UW’s West Side Campus, which includes many health science centric institutions and schools, like the UW Hospital and Clinics, the Ebling Library for the Health Sciences, the Waisman Center, and the Schools of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH), Pharmacy, Veterinary Medicine and Nursing, are particularly interested in reading and discussing the “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” Skloot’s themes, such as ownership of bodily parts and tissue, the inclusion and necessary protection of human subjects, the place of the HeLa cell in research, the ethics of informed consent, and the question of racial equity in research protocols are all themes which our colleagues must grapple with on a routine basis. A group of instructors and administrators called the Interprofessional Health Education Committee (IHEC) have envisioned a Go Big Read-Health Sciences Program that will include hundreds of health sciences students in one hour sessions with a facilitator who starts the discussion with one of three over-arching themes; Science and Society, Race and Culture, and Ethics (in Research). Facilitators will raise questions within each of these broader themes, such as, “As a future health professional what message will you take from this book?” or “Who is entitled to profit from the distribution of cells?” IHEC plans for students from each of the four schools to discuss these topics together, each of them bringing sensibilities from the health science discipline and life experiences that they differ in, as well as have in common. SMPH’s Curriculum Manager, Renie Schapiro, and colleagues from the four health sciences schools, including the Department of Medical History & Bioethics, are organizing 25-40 facilitators who will lead nearly 800 students in 40 sessions over a 3 week period. This gargantuan effort is being overseen by Jeanine Mount, PH. D., RP H, Christine Seibert, M.D., Chris Olsen, DVM, PH.D., and Nadine Nehls, PH.D., RN., with the organizational prowess of History of Science graduate student Lynnette Regouby and the enviable OASIS calendaring system. For information on the Facilitator’s Discussion Guide, please contact: regouby@wisc.edu