Family Practice Physician Fails to Screen for Colon Cancer
The following excerpt from a Notice of Intent to File Claim, or more commonly called “Notice of Intent to Sue,” is a recent case that the litigators at Erlich, Rosen, Bartnick & Cook, P.C., have begun on behalf of one of our clients. If you wish to discuss a medical malpractice claim please contact ERBC at either www.ERBClaw.com or 1-800-595-0506 for a free consultation.
Factual Basis for Claim
Plaintiff treated with Defendant Family Practice physician from 2001 through 2006 for her general medical care. During those years the Defendant was a medical doctor specializing in family medicine and did undertake to care and treat the Plaintiff as a patient for general medical care and various medical conditions. He also performed physical examinations on the Plaintiff for the early diagnosis of disease. Such studies included radiology examinations, blood work, bone density and other studies. A detailed and complete family history was not taken when Plaintiff became Defendant=s patient to determine if she had a family history of colon cancer or when she had last had a rectal exam, hemocult blood work done, or had a sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy.
Defendant Family Practitioner also never requested or obtained any of Plaintiff=s medical records from physicians with whom she had treated prior to seeing him. At the time Plaintiff first started treating with Defendant she was 74 years of age and continued to treat with him up until the time of her death from metastatic colon cancer on February 22, 2006.
During the five years that Plaintiff was a patient of the Defendant, the required yearly hemocult testing, rectal examinations, or sigmoidoscopies were not done. Nor was a colonoscopy examination ordered despite a family history of colon cancer, to determine whether or not Plaintiff had pre-malignant polyps or was in the early stages of colon cancer.
Defendant Family Practitioner should have performed routine yearly hemocult and rectal examinations in light of Plaintiff being over 50 years of age and having a family history of colon cancer. In addition, a colonoscopic examination should have been ordered and performed, given her age and family history of colon cancer, at least every five years if negative, or even more frequently if polyps, lesions, or mass are present. If Defendant himself did not perform colonoscopies, then in order to comply with the standard of care he should have referred Plaintiff out to a physician for the purpose of performing a screening colonoscopy to rule out the presence of a polyp and/or cancer of the colon.
As a result of Defendant doctor failing to take a complete medical history from Plaintiff when she first became his patient, or obtain previous records of her prior treating physicians, he did not obtain the proper information to know that Plaintiff had a family history of colon cancer and furthermore had not undergone any colon cancer screening tests despite her age and family history. As a result Defendant doctor failed to perform yearly hemocult and rectal examinations, and failed to perform or order a colonoscopy at least once when she first became his patient and then every five years thereafter if negative, and more frequently if positive. Had Defendant doctor done this Plaintiff’s colon cancer would have been diagnosed and treated in its very early stages with a very high probability of cure rather than allowing it to go untreated until it metastasized. The delay in the diagnosis of the colon cancer, which progressed without diagnosis to the development of metastatic cancer of the colon, ultimately resulted in the death of Plaintiff from metastatic colon cancer on February 22, 2006.
