February 2005 – A man sues because a biopsy was not performed prior to testicle removal due to cancer. Frivolous, because standard of care was followed to the letter:

Put yourself in the doctor’s shoes. You have a case of a suspicious testicular mass. You don’t know if it’s cancer or not. Biopsying the mass may lead to a worse outcome if it is cancer. However, there is a chance that it isn’t cancer. The only way to know for sure would be to take out the mass and look at it under a microscope. For the lawyers in the audience, what would you do? Such is the uncertainty inherent in medicine.

Our trial system unfortunately pounces on such uncertainty. The public has to understand that medicine is as much art as science – there are many cases where there are no “right” answers. Believe it or not, most doctors have the patients’ best interests at heart.