liability for failure of diagnosis?

[KP]

Okay.. originally I wasn't even contemplating this because I really don't care about assigning blame for my late diagnosis. However, in the interest of potentially saving another's life and also ensuring my daughter's financial future, I am rethinking this.

Has anyone pursued any legal action for a failure to do a colonoscopy when symptoms "warranted" one?

I went to the dr on numerous occasions in 02 for dark blood in my stools. They claimed it was anal fissures or hemorrhoids. I even verbalized "wouldn't that be bright red? I've had Hemorrhoids."

Had I been diagnosed in 02 the staging would have been different than in 2006.

I am sure OTHERS had similar experiences!
Please share your opinion... I really just feel disappointment that the proper tests weren't performed and I didn't know what to ask for. Yet, the burden shouldn't be on the pt.

K

[eitter]

K.............I have never heard of anyone doing this in all the forums and support groups I belong to.

Please really think about this decision. My overall opinion is that as americans we go after lawsuits to much. IMHO(In My Humble Opinion)
This is also one of the major reasons we have escaculating healthcare costs, I worked in the healthcare industry for 20 years and it is out of control.

Burden should not be on the patient?! I am not sure I totally agree with that statement, all of us need to be our own advocates and know our bodies better then anyone else. I do feel there needs to be further education and more PSA's in regaards to cancer and what to look for and this is why I am so excited about going to Washington DC, my goal is get out more education.

[Christine]

I don't know anyone with colon cancer who has tried, but I do know a couple of people who had breast cancer misdiagnosis. None of them were successful in their lawsuits. One couldn't even find a lawyer willing to take hers on. It is very difficult to prove how different things may have been had the cancer been diagnosed earlier.

My opinion is that if it will give you piece of mind, you should at least look into it. Talk to a couple of reputable lawyers and see what their opinion is.

[Side note: It is actually a fallacy that malpractice lawsuits are responsible for a significant amount of escalating health care costs - although it has not been proven conclusively, most health economists agree that technological advances are driving a majority of the increasing health care costs. I don't disagree that there are an alarming number of frivolous lawsuits in the US, but as a graduate student in Public Health/Health Services, I just wanted to clarify.]

Christine

[eitter]

I do not want to get into the war of words, but I know first hand what does happen on the financial end of lawsuits, I am a CPA and have been on the accounting side of Health Care for years and then went into a CPA firm and now I am governmental.

But what happens is malpratice insurance or should I say happened is malpractice insurance has gone through the roof and this is directly related to lawsuits, I am not sure how anyone can argue that, it is just a fact. Then what we did is pass on that cost to the patients in increased fees.

Then Sarbanes Oakley came along and I saw audit fees double while I was still at a CPA firm. Because once again insurance fees went through the roof, I know Sarbanes Oakley was not a healthcare issue, but I was just using that as an example of increased liability fees and how those fees are passed on.

[missjv]

well i can see your point especially about going to the doc numerous times with symptoms of colon cancer and then having them blown off as hemroids or fissures because of your young age. you did what you were supposed to do by going to the doctor and the doctor failed you and now you are faced with a life threatning disease while raising your beautiful daughter and wondering if you will be there to see her grow up i know how heart wrenching that is i have a 9 year old daughter and im in the same boat with stage 4 as i had a small lung recurrance which has been taken care of but i still wonder will i be standing there when my daughter accepts her high school diploma or when she gets behind the wheel of a car for the 1st time and if i will be there for the first date. you have to think long and hard about a lawsuit and no one has the right to judge you thats for sure i think you need to do what your heart tells you to do. one thing i would do if i were in your shoes is to contact the doctor that kept blowing your symptoms off and show him a picture of your family and tell him or her maybe if they would have paid more attention to what you were saying your family wouldn't be suffering right now with this illness and your life would be alot different.

missjv

[Guest]

Okay.. originally I wasn't even contemplating this because I really don't care about assigning blame for my late diagnosis. However, in the interest of potentially saving another's life and also ensuring my daughter's financial future, I am rethinking this.

Has anyone pursued any legal action for a failure to do a colonoscopy when symptoms "warranted" one?

I went to the dr on numerous occasions in 02 for dark blood in my stools. They claimed it was anal fissures or hemorrhoids. I even verbalized "wouldn't that be bright red? I've had Hemorrhoids."

Had I been diagnosed in 02 the staging would have been different than in 2006.

I am sure OTHERS had similar experiences!
Please share your opinion... I really just feel disappointment that the proper tests weren't performed and I didn't know what to ask for. Yet, the burden shouldn't be on the pt.

K

KP,
I know how you are feeling right now. Go for it, and find out any info you can. It could help someone else later on. I know that doctors and nurses are so careless now a days. Our hospital in Huntsville, Alabama is terrible. If you go in for surgery or something else you always come out alot worse off than you were. We have alot of folks down here scared to go to the hospital here. It's on the news all the time too. We had an awful experience with my dad when he went in to have his rectal resection surgery, the nurses were terrible, his surgeon had to get onto the floor head nurses because of things they did wrong and wasn't doing. Dr. say well you are too young for this to be wrong, and diagnose you with something else. My mom back 11 yrs ago was having some problems with her head. She went to her doc and asked him if it could be a brain tumor and he said no way. He give her medicine for different things, she went back and suggested a MRI of head and sure enough it was a brain tumor, it wasn't malignant thank the LORD!!! But, they did surgery and removed it and she is fine, but the docs should also listen to their patients. It's easier and cheaper to treat things early. Insurance has a big part in all this too. I think they should allow anyone at least age 40 to go for a routine colonoscopy. They have finally started allowing women to start mammograms at age 35. KP, how old are you and how are you doing?? I think about you every day.
Cynthia

[sue]

KP,
I would definitally call a few lawyer's about this. Please remember the statue of limits on time (years) In our state I think it is 4 years. ! Sue

Okay.. originally I wasn't even contemplating this because I really don't care about assigning blame for my late diagnosis. However, in the interest of potentially saving another's life and also ensuring my daughter's financial future, I am rethinking this.

Has anyone pursued any legal action for a failure to do a colonoscopy when symptoms "warranted" one?

I went to the dr on numerous occasions in 02 for dark blood in my stools. They claimed it was anal fissures or hemorrhoids. I even verbalized "wouldn't that be bright red? I've had Hemorrhoids."

Had I been diagnosed in 02 the staging would have been different than in 2006.

I am sure OTHERS had similar experiences!
Please share your opinion... I really just feel disappointment that the proper tests weren't performed and I didn't know what to ask for. Yet, the burden shouldn't be on the pt.

K

[Magnolia]

Medicine is not an exact science. Errors in judgement can happen, even to perfectly competent practitioners. They can make a decision and simply be wrong. There may not be a case for negligence or incompetence in every case of misdiagnosis. A patient has a case when a practitioner is truly negligent or should have known better. Dark blood in stools usually comes from higher up in the tract. That's pretty common knowledge. Even lay people know that. 'Rrhoids cause bright red bleeding, as a general rule. You may have a case if you can convince an attorney first, and then a jury that the doc should have known that the bleeding wasn't hemorrhoids and done a more thorough workup. If I were your doc, I wouldn't have thought hemorroids first. I might have thought ulcer, but not hemorrhoids. It would have warrented a look. ANY bleeding warrents a look until you're sure of it's source.

[christyblum]

Wow I can so relate to your post I was misdiagnosed also. I had red blood in my stool and went to the ER and they told me I just had and intestinal infection. They did not do any tests all the said was you are to young for it to be colon cancer! They need to get age out of there heads!!! I'm very angry and want to educate people also on this fact it can happen at any age (I just turned 37 in Dec.). A year later on this Oct I decided to see my primary phy and she immediatly had me go for a colonoscopy cause I was still seeing red blood on occasions a year later. I have stage 3 colon cancer with 1 out of 10 lymph nodes removed positive and I also feel a year would of made a difference and I know yours was four. I will keep you in my prayers! Hang in there! Christy

[wendysafrica]

I feel anger at misdiagnosis would be more constructive if channelled into public education. I would definitely not consider legal action. Your energies need to concentrate on positive things not the past which cannot be changed.

I think it will be very difficult to prove retrospectively that the cancer was there in 2002. There are many things that could have caused the blood in the stool at the time, and without medical proof that it was cancer then, I feel it would be difficult to lay blame for subsequent events. The opposing lawyers would also probably get into challenging you as to why you didn't go back for more opinions or follow-ups if the bleeding continued etc and it could turn very ugly.

I think it would be more destructive than constructive. Energy better spent doing things with your family and in getting better. And no amount of money can make a bad outcome better. But I do sympathise with you.

[lamerex4]

KP, It took 11 months for me to get my doctors to listen to me. I had a normal screening colonoscopy just 3 years prior to the onset of my symptoms. I couldn't even get the attention of my gynecologic oncologist! After having hemorrhoids banded and 'giving it more healing time' I had to resort to taking a digital picture of my stool! I was diagnosed with Stage 1 two weeks later.
I see you are Stage IV with recurrence.
Yes, I would talk to an attorney.
We shouldn't have to resort to taking digital pictures to be heard.

[Magnolia]

Stage IV colon cancer takes many years to develop. It's very likely there was something there in 2002. As a healthcare provider myself, I'm not generally in favor of jumping into a lawsuit willy nilly, but a conversation with an attorney may not be a bad idea. It seems to me that dark, bloody stools did warrent further investigation, and a cancer was missed. Cases like this HAVE been won in the past. All you have to prove is that a reasonable practitioner would have done differently, and that doing differently would likely have made a difference in the outcome. There's a lot to support both points. Where the positivity comes in is in helping KP's children secure their future, pay for college or whatever. It's not just being vindictive.

[Magnolia]

Another thought on making a difference in the outcome. The legal system may see that as a simple difference in whether you live or die. Hopefully, you still have a chance to beat this and live a long while, but in any case, the "difference" may have to be redefined in terms of pain and suffering, costs to the family, lost income etc.

[KP]

I have really paid attention to your posts. Thanks.

I am actually an attorney by education, and licensed in CA - but don't consider myself the suing/litigious type. I abandoned that career to teach kids!

I DO feel that there needs to be more awareness, and I am working hard at that. And, I DO feel that if my daughter and husband suffer because of my lack of ability to earn an income, I would like to have security for them.

It has been recommended to go very softly into this. I do not want to have a lawsuit perse, but to find liability and cover some of our loses, plus make them aware of how this was handled.

Perhaps its just "noise" and this is a huge HMO we're talking about - and they could probably care less... but I am interested to try and see how they respond.

I would not seek liability for the cancer, it would hinge on failure to do a colonoscopy when signs warranted its necessity. We couldn't prove the cancer was there, then.

Hmmmm. I know we all suffer a loss. And, its not a good place to dwell because it will affect me with negative energy!

Any other thoughts?

[laura3364]

I was glad to find this thread because I am also considering a lawsuit against my gynecologist. I am thinking about it carefully. I don't blame him for not finding the cancer; I blame him for not going far enough. I saw him in September 07 and had an obvious vaginal mass which he failed to detect or recommend follow up tests or treatment when I insisted something was wrong. It took me nearly 6 weeks to find another gyn and get an appointment with a GI who together diagnosed the rectal cancer which had broken through my vaginal wall. You have no idea how frightening it is to lie on a table and have another physician exclaim, "He missed THIS?"

I know the first doctor could not do anything about the cancer -- it was there, and that's not his fault. But based on his finding that I was fine and did not need any follow up, I took a severance package at my job, believing I would have another job in a month or two. If I had any idea that it wasn't fine, I wouldn't have accepted the package and would still have the protections afforded to me by work. Now I am unemployed and have to pay $600 a month for my COBRA insurance, and I really can't look for another job because no company is going to take me on with 6 weeks absence for ostomy surgery, iffy attendence during chemo and radiation, a month of full time work, then another 6 weeks out for surgery to remove the cancer.

I don't want a lot of money -- just enough to replace the income I am losing this year because he said I was fine. I was not fine, I was very ill, and even though everyone makes mistakes, he still has his job, his health and his income. I lost almost two months when my treatment could have begun earlier because I was "fine."

At first, awareness and education was what I wanted, too -- I simply wanted to write a letter to him, begging him to be more thorough with his new patients and go a step further with them. I don't believe my prognosis would be any different, but I would be much further along in my treatment and able to get back to work earlier and not have such financial hardship.

Am I angry and shocked at my cancer diagnosis? Yes, of course, more at myself than anyone. We can insist and insist but we are also at the mercy of those we trust to provide health care for us. Doctors are human and they make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes can be devastating to people. I am in a true quandry about what to do, and it might ease my mind just to talk to a lawyer. I don't want to take out my anger on this doc by suing him; however, I can't ignore the fact that I went to him for help and I was completely dismissed. And, I don't want anyone else to be treated that way -- I saw pregnant women in his waiting room and that worries me. Would his malpractice insurance go up? It might. Would he ever forget to go that extra step with a patient again? I would hope not.

KP, I don't know what to tell you. I'm sure we're not the first people who have considered this and we won't be the last. My angle is a little simpler than yours. But, perhaps just even speaking out, making the waves so to speak, will help protect other patients, and maybe in the end, that will be enough.

Keep us posted.

Laura