Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in Pennsylvania

Medical Malpractice

My mother's primary care doctor delayed her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment in a very ill-willed and negligent manner. My mother had a mammogram on March of 2000, which had a reccomendation of a follow-up mammogram within 4 months, due to the radiologists suspicions. However, my mother's doctor never informed her or scheduled the follow up. A year and two months, at the request of my mother, she had a mammogram on May 31,2001, this time the radiologist reccomended a biopsy to establish maligancy. to top things off, after my mother was diagnosed with cancer, the doctor refused to be her doctor anymore, and refused to issue key referrals at times. How substantial is this case in terms of malpractice suits, and what proper course of action should be taken?


Asked on 8/10/01, 1:27 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

William Marvin Cohen, Placitella & Roth, P.C.

Re: Medical Malpractice

How substantial? What you've outline certainly sounds like substandard medical care, especially with regard to the followup recommendation not being communicated.

Often the most difficult issue in a failure to diagnose cancer case is causation. We hope that it's still early, and the cancer can be treated sucessfully. If that's the case, maybe the repeat mammogram would still have been negative.

Your mother should contact an attorney to review the facts and determine if legal action is warranted. There's many more factors which go into the issue. It's necessary to consult experts to project the cancer growth to develop the facts about what difference earlier diagnosis and treatment would have made.

Our firm, among many others, handles these types of cases and we'd be happy to discuss it in more detail.

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Answered on 8/10/01, 1:59 pm
Jerry Meyers Meyers Evans & Associates, LLC

Re: Medical Malpractice

The delay in diagnosis certainly sounds unwarranted. What rights you have depend upon the state wherre the care was given. The challenge in breast cancer cases is proving that but for the negligence of the defendants, Advanced disease would not have occurred or that someother unfortunate outcome would have been avoided. Doctors in our office assist with the evaluation and management of such case. We also have an extensive medical library and have internet access to the most up to date journals. Though we are licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania, sometimes when we feel an important case warrants our involvement elsewhere, we request permission of other states to permit us to represent out of state clients. Please feel free to call Dr Fleischman (800 440-5297)in our office to provide further facts so that we can determine whether we can be of help to you. You should also look at our website www.malpractice-lawyers.net We have much information there about our firm and about cancer cases in general.

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Answered on 8/10/01, 4:42 pm


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