subject: Man Settles With Doctors For $2.5 Million After Finding Out He Had With Metastatic Prostate Cancer [print this page] Coordinating the patient care can literally make the difference between life and death. The participation of a number of doctors in the treatment of the patient means that some doctors might have vital information that should be relayed to the patient as well as the other doctors for proper follow up. Without it the patient might go on not receiving suitable and essential treatment.
Patients generally expect that the physician will inform them in case there are any adverse results from testing ordered by the physician. When people do not hear back from a physician many take that as an indication that everything is fine and that there is no need for them to follow up with the physician. Consequently if a physician has information or reaches a judgments that the patient requires immediate follow up or treatment it is crucial for that doctor to inform the patient and possibly also at least the patient's primary care physician.
Consider the following reported medical malpractice claim. Several doctors had a chance to diagnose the man's prostate cancer when it was in its early stages. A male patient went to his family doctor complaining of urinary problems. He was 56 at the time. The family doctor assumed that the patient's problems were not caused by cancer. Therefore, the family doctor did not order any diagnostic testing, for example a biopsy and failed to refer the man to a urologist.
Ten months later the man saw a urologist who performed a digital examination on the prostate gland and ordered a PSA blood test. The individual then learned that his insurance carrier did not have the urologist in its list of approved physicians and he went to a different urologist who was approved. Even though the blood test results came in neither the results of the test nor the first urologist's suspicion of cancer and recommendation that a biopsy be done were passed on to the man's primary care physician or to his second urologist. The authorized urologist did not order a PSA blood test. The approved urologist also carried out a physical examination of the prostate but did not find any abnormalities and so concluded that the patient did not have cancer.
It was an additional 2 years when the patient's prostate cancer was ultimately detected. The physicians treating the patient's cancer came to the conclusion that he probably had only 1 to 5 years to live because of the cancer's spread. The law firm that represented the patient reported that the resulting medical malpractice case settled for $2,500,000.
This case therefore shows 2 key varieties of failures. There was the failure on the part of the general practitioner and the second urologist to not follow the proper screening guidelines. The other error was one in communication. This occurred when there was a miscommunication of the findings, suspicions, and advice of the urologist who was not approved by the insurance company and the other physicians. Although there is no way to know whether the PCP or the second urologist would have followed up on results of the PSA test from the first urologist or on that urologist's suspicion and recommendation they at least would have had information and perspective they were missing.
by: Joseph Hernandez
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