Man Dies Of Prostate Cancer After Doctors Ignored His Symptoms And Abnormal Test Results For Years

Once several doctors become involved in the care a patient it can be vital for the

doctors to relay vital diagnostic results as well as follow-up and treatment recommendations to the patient and to the other doctors. Many individuals think that the doctor will call them in the event that there are any serious results from tests ordered by the physician. When people do not hear back from a doctor many interpret that as an indication that everything is fine and that there is no need for them to follow up with the physician. It gets more complicated, however, when the one physician who is on the right track ends up not communicating his or her suspicions and the other physicians are not catching the signs and not ordering the correct tests.

One such situation happened in the following reported case. A number of physicians had a chance to diagnose the male patient's prostate cancer The patient first consulted with his primary care physician (PCP), a general practitioner, with urinary problems at 56 years old age. The primary care physician concluded that the issues were not related to cancer although no testing was done to rule out cancer.

The patient, on his own, saw a urologist 10 months later. The urologist carried out a physical examination of the prostate and ordered a PSA blood test. The man then discovered 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 advice that a biopsy be carried out were passed on to the man's family doctor or to his second urologist. The approved urologist did not order a PSA blood test. The approved urologist also carried out a physical examination of the prostate but found no abnormalities and so concluded that the patient did not have cancer.

It took another 2 years before the patient's prostate cancer was at long last diagnosed. By that time, the cancer had spread outside the prostate and was now advanced. Had the cancer been caught at the time the patient first complained of urinary problems, when he saw the first urologist, or even when the second urologist failed to find any abnormalities with his prostate and failed to order a PSA test, it would have still been contained in the prostate and, with treatment, the patient would have had approximately 97% likelihood of surviving the cancer. Since the cancer was by now advanced , however, the patient was not expected to live more than five years. The law firm that helped the patient published that the resulting medical malpractice claim settled for $2.5 Million.

As the case described above reveals, having several doctors for the same issue might lead to multiple mistakes. The first error was not following the screening guidelines. This was an error committed by both the PCP and the second urologist. Additionally there was the failure of communication among the different doctors. While it is impossible to know whether the primary care physician 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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