I will try to keep this short while being as informative as possible.
My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer 4 years ago by his urologist. He opted for surgery to remove his prostate, however when the surgeon got in there his cancer had spread outside of his prostate and had attached to his bladder so the surgeon closed him back up and told him he would need to find another form of treatment. Dad then opted for radiation therapy followed by hormone repression injections. Dad followed the entire course of radiation therapy and began his shots. He was told that they were fairly certain that all of the cancer had been eliminated after his radiation was complete. After the radiation treatment, dad was fully under the supervision of his urologist for his injections.
Probably less than a year later dad started having some bone pain, and in one of the spots (on his rib cage) he actually had a knot that you could feel. His urologist sent him for a bone scan which showed that he had some cancer in a few places in his bones. The urologist told dad that the prostate cancer had metastasized to his bones but should not grow very rapidly due to his injections. As time went on dad was in so much pain he had to be put on morphine pills. Dad's PSA tests weren't raising very much at all, but each subsequent bone scan showed the cancer had grown and spread on his bones, but the urologist kept telling dad that there was nothing really that could be done for metastatic bone cancer except maybe some radiation treatments that might help with the pain, but that chemo would probably not be helpful.
Well, my father took a serious turn for the worse in May when his breathing started becoming labored and he was suffering from chest pain. When he went to the ER they took an x-ray of his chest and found his left lung was terribly damaged with cancer and full of fluid. A biopsy showed that dad did not have lung cancer, nor did he have prostate cancer in his lung, but Osteosarcoma...a BONE cancer. A bone cancer that, while rare, can be a result of high-dose radiation therapy. A bone cancer that almost always metastasizes to the lungs when left untreated. My father was suffering from bone cancer the whole time his urologist kept assuring him it was metastatic prostate cancer. His urologist never recommended a biopsy of the tumors that showed up on dads bone scans. He never once considered that the cancer could be anything other than prostate cancer. He made an assumption that cost my father his life. Dad died Thursday night, a little over a month and a half after finding out that he had Osteosarcoma.
My question is this: Is the urologist guilty of malpractice for not ordering or even recommending a biopsy for the cancer that showed up on dads bone scan? Is he guilty of malpractice for not ordering or recommending a biopsy even after dad steadily declined, his cancer grew, but his PSA tests were only going up by a very small margin? Even the urologist kept telling him that his PSA tests looked good.
My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer 4 years ago by his urologist. He opted for surgery to remove his prostate, however when the surgeon got in there his cancer had spread outside of his prostate and had attached to his bladder so the surgeon closed him back up and told him he would need to find another form of treatment. Dad then opted for radiation therapy followed by hormone repression injections. Dad followed the entire course of radiation therapy and began his shots. He was told that they were fairly certain that all of the cancer had been eliminated after his radiation was complete. After the radiation treatment, dad was fully under the supervision of his urologist for his injections.
Probably less than a year later dad started having some bone pain, and in one of the spots (on his rib cage) he actually had a knot that you could feel. His urologist sent him for a bone scan which showed that he had some cancer in a few places in his bones. The urologist told dad that the prostate cancer had metastasized to his bones but should not grow very rapidly due to his injections. As time went on dad was in so much pain he had to be put on morphine pills. Dad's PSA tests weren't raising very much at all, but each subsequent bone scan showed the cancer had grown and spread on his bones, but the urologist kept telling dad that there was nothing really that could be done for metastatic bone cancer except maybe some radiation treatments that might help with the pain, but that chemo would probably not be helpful.
Well, my father took a serious turn for the worse in May when his breathing started becoming labored and he was suffering from chest pain. When he went to the ER they took an x-ray of his chest and found his left lung was terribly damaged with cancer and full of fluid. A biopsy showed that dad did not have lung cancer, nor did he have prostate cancer in his lung, but Osteosarcoma...a BONE cancer. A bone cancer that, while rare, can be a result of high-dose radiation therapy. A bone cancer that almost always metastasizes to the lungs when left untreated. My father was suffering from bone cancer the whole time his urologist kept assuring him it was metastatic prostate cancer. His urologist never recommended a biopsy of the tumors that showed up on dads bone scans. He never once considered that the cancer could be anything other than prostate cancer. He made an assumption that cost my father his life. Dad died Thursday night, a little over a month and a half after finding out that he had Osteosarcoma.
My question is this: Is the urologist guilty of malpractice for not ordering or even recommending a biopsy for the cancer that showed up on dads bone scan? Is he guilty of malpractice for not ordering or recommending a biopsy even after dad steadily declined, his cancer grew, but his PSA tests were only going up by a very small margin? Even the urologist kept telling him that his PSA tests looked good.
