The family of a late Harvard professor is suing his doctors for missing a lung cancer
“The doctors all failed to recognize a 1-centimeter lung lesion on a chest X-ray taken of the Harvard University professor in February 2001, according to Alex MacDonald, the lawyer for Gould’s survivors.
Thirteen months later, after another chest X-ray was taken, the lesion had grown to 3 centimeters and the cancer had spread to Gould’s brain, liver and spleen, MacDonald said . . .
. . . ‘We have a film that clearly shows a lesion that was missed by three doctors, and it should not have been,’ MacDonald said. ‘If it had been recognized, professor Gould would still be teaching at Harvard College today.’”
Related posts:
- More tests is better medicine: Why the myth is hard to break
- How does cancer screening cause harm?
- Who is responsible for an abnormality on pre-operative testing, or, aren’t radiologists doctors too?
- Lung cancer CT screening produces false positives and isn’t ready for prime time
- "A CT scan in hand is far better then no CT scan or biopsy at all"
- Tony Snow’s colon cancer has spread to his liver
- Claudia Henschke and "blood money"
KevinMD.com on Facebook
{ 5 comments }
I hope he has an interesting conversation with God now.
Faulty logic there, isn’t it. Maybe that lesion shouldn’t have been missed, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that he’d have survived if he’d had immediate surgery. Cancer is a bitch. It doesn’t follow nice neat rules.
Way too little information, and way too much bluster from the plaintiff’s counsel, but the larger the number of “all those doctors” who happened to miss the “tumor”, the harder it to believe that anything was really missed, especially when what is being interpreted is radiographs.
So what the plaintiff’s lawyer said is “too much bluster”, you find this statement by the defendant equally blusterous:
“The claims against Dr. Mayer … are without merit and there is simply no basis for holding him responsible for the alleged failure to diagnose”?
Honestly, Kevin, this has got to be the most understated title on your blog. Ever.
“The family of a late Harvard professor…”
Dude, the guy was SJ Gould.
Comments on this entry are closed.