Question

1) The film uses the term, “Politics of information”. What is it and how did it influence Eunice Rivers?

2) How do the “Politics of Information” influence nursing today?

3) What nursing supports are in place today that may have guided Eunice Rivers?

4)What are your thoughts on the actions of Eunice Rivers in regard to the Tuskegee study? Her strengths? Her weaknesses?

Answer 1

Eunice rivers was an African American nurse , coordinator of Tuskegee syphilis experiment. The Tuskegee experiment was an inhuman study that deliberately allowed black man to develop syphilis when there was treatment for the disease. Her work ethic, care for patients, and exceptional nursing abilities earned her the respect of hermite supervisors and other health professionals. She played a critical role in scientific experiments and patient care, nurse rivers help expand the impact of this group of people in medicine.

But her act in joining the the Tuskegee syphilis experiment could be seen as unethical because the patients was said they were provided by free medical care but without knowing that they were merely subjects of the experiment and the participants still did not receive treatment for syphilis. Rivers what's the experiments only consistent full time staff member. Once the news of an ethical treatment of participants in the study was exposed rivers retreated into silence.

She could be seen as-

-dedicated nurse willing to to follow any orders to keep treating her patients.

-race traitor who used her education and class power to keep her job and sell out the rural man she was caring for.

-he played a crucial role in recruiting and keeping participants in the study but she also provided them with both medical and mental care they otherwise would not have received. She listened to their complaints offered comfort.

-she provided men with more treatment opportunities for other conditions that they had previously received from health professionals.

In fact Rivers was presented as everything by virtue of her status as a woman, an African American, and a nurse. Even when she stood with them and provided her best for the black men.