Let me tell you a story about a neighbor I grew up near, her name’s Sue.
Sue found a lump in her breast about, oh, 7 or 8 years ago. So she went to the doctor, who examined her, etc., and told her it was nothing to worry about. Benign and all that, here’s the bill, see you later.
A couple of months passed, and she was feeling worse and worse. Her breast started to pucker and she had other symptoms of breast cancer.
She went to another doctor, who took one look at her breast and said “oh yeah. You’ve got it.” His nurse later told her that she had NEVER seen this doctor diagnose someone without having a mammogram/labwork first — that’s how bad off this woman was.
Anyhow, turns out she had an advanced stage of breast cancer. She almost died. They had to remove all of her breast AND her lymph nodes. They also removed the other one because the danger of it spreading to the other breast was just too great to ignore.
She’s okay now. Sue has this thing where she is 100% against all lawsuits … ANY lawsuit. She refuses to sue Doctor #1, who, IMHO, pretty much gave her the runaround and almost killed her. (We came to find out later that this guy has a habit of blowing patients off and not being thorough.)
Given that this doctor is still practicing, and could do this to another woman who might not be so fortunate, would she have a moral OBLIGATION to sue him for malpractice … thus getting the word out that this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing and plus “punishing” him (or his insurance company, anyway) for letting her almost die?
Or should she just count herself lucky to be alive and leave it at that?
coincidentally, my sister and I were just discussing my father’s death many years ago. We felt that the surgeons had been negligent, but we didn’t do anything. We had no desire to sue, but we still regret not having taken some action.
Your friend could write letters to the hospital and the state medical society describing her experience.
I agree with december here… letters to the hospital and the state medical board describing the experience, with some supporting evidence from the other doctor to give it some credence, could do a great deal to at least prevent or discourage the negligent doctor from making that mistake again.
Hopefully it’ll get his license revoked, if sufficient evidence is found.
Just a question, what did the other doctor have to say about the negligent one missing the diagnosis, if anything?
I understand how Sue feels about lawsuits, but there may be ways to incur justice in this case while avoiding a direct suit from her.
I think that your friend has the moral obligation to sue if for no other reason than to prevent him from possibly killing someone. Because of this doctor’s negligence, your friend lost her breasts, and her lymph nodes. She may have to undergo cosmetic surgery if she wants to look like what she did before.
How much time did your friend lose from work? Did she lose her job because of the time she wasn’t working? Did she have any out of pocket expenses because of this? She should sue just to get herself back to where she would have been if this chucklehead has done his job properly.
If this isn’t enough to convince her then what about the possibility that this guy might do this to someone else who doesn’t catch it in time and dies.
If she has concerns about the first doctor she should report the behaviour to the state licensing board or hospital. If she wishes compensation, she should sue. These are almost mutually exclusive. Greed or a desire for punishment or compensation is a more frequent cause of lawsuits than common concern and other legalistic hyperbole.
While she may have reason to sue, it is also possible that she is not describing the full story. Conservative treatment does indeed have a place in medicine, and the flaw of the first doctor was not in the opinion or reassurance offered, but in lack of testing and follow-up. It is possible these were offered.
Many patients stay with their physician and believe in their diagnosis’. What would have happened if your friend had stayed with this physician? She would probably be dead.
I think she should sue. Of course she could ask for, as a settlement, that the physician pay her legal fees and surrender his license to practice.
My mother died giving birth back in 1965. Her brothers and parents literally were pissed off that my dad did not sue. We all could sure have used the money.
I concur with Dr. Paprika. If the lawsuit had an altruistic motive to prevent future malpractice, then the complainant should understand that insurance companies cover for the doctors, and we all cover for the insurance companies.
HELLOOOOO!? This woman has principles and thank God she will follow them. There is nothing in life more irritating than someone who doesn’t think people should do something, and then because it is suddenly in their personal interest goes out and does that very thing. It is called hypocrisy. Your friend is not a hypocrite. Not a hypocrite. What a treasure of rare beauty!
She can always report the guy to the medical board without the heartache of years of awful litigation.
I believe that people should have a right to sue for their grievances, but I’ve known people who have, and even if they win (and they do not always win), it is a long, emotionally painful and expensive process.
But there is nothing more irritating to me than the sort of people who whine about something like tort reform and then go out and sue people. Personally, I think that there should be a law that says that anybody who is against filing lawsuits should not be allowed to file one, that they should not have the choice of being a hypocrite.
Perhaps the doctor should be sued, but let’s stop acting as though it’s his fault she got cancer. The same Real World responsible for her cancer is responsible for for doctors being human beings and for human beings being prone to error. Her situation was no different than if there were no such thing as doctors (and we’re moving in that direction if these lawsuits continue). What I’d like to see is someone who can’t get medical care because the doctors have been driven out of practice to sue the suers.
To be fair, the doctor in the OP apparantly has shown a pattern of negligence, and so might deserve to be punished for being a Bad Doctor. But the woman’s situation is no different than if he had been a Good Doctor who had made that one inevitable, isolated mistake, in which case he wouldn’t have deserved to be punished.
I’m also against lawsuits in general, although, given sufficient cause, I would sue. I also get very annoyed with people who try to convince me to give up a moral stance and am likely to cling to it even harder.
Since your friend is morally opposed to suing, I’ll join those suggesting she contact the local AMA or medical board and put a complaint on record. I did that once in Hawai’i when I saw a doctor for exhaustion that wouldn’t go away (it probably had something to do with moving in high summer, but I was still nervous). He asked about the possibility of pregnancy, and, when I told him that was impossible considering I hadn’t had sex in over a year, he suggested that might be the problem. Let’s just say I told him I disagreed with him, especially given concerns about STDs, etc. It wasn’t bad enough to sue for and was probably just stupid, but nevertheless, I wasn’t comfortable with that remark.
She has no moral obligation to sue, but she does have a moral obligation to take some action. The purpose of her action should be to reduce the possibility that similar mistakes are not made in the future. Reporting the doctor to the state licensing board or simply sending him a polite letter telling him that he blew the diagnosis are two options.
A lawsuit is about getting money, although a secondary outcome may be that it will prevent future mistakes. To that extent I see a lawsuit as less moral than the other options presented.