Patient Informs 3 Physicians About His Symptoms And Physicians Do

Patient Informs 3 Physicians About His Symptoms And Physicians Do Not Diagnose Prostate Cancer For Years

Coordinating the patient care can actually make the difference between life and death. The participation of more than one physicians in the treatment of the patient includes the possibility that some physicians might have essential information that needs to be relayed to the patient as well as the other physicians for appropriate follow up. Without it the patient may go on without suitable and critical treatment. The importance of such communication is not necessarily negated due to the fact the patient does no return to any of the physicians. So in cases where a doctor has information or reaches a conclusion that the patient requires immediate follow up or treatment it is critical for that doctor to communicate that to the patient and possibly also at least the patient's primary care physician.

One such situation arose in the following reported case. A number of physicians had an opportunity to diagnose the male patients prostate cancer The man first consulted with his primary care physician (PCP), a general practitioner, with complaints of urinary problems at 56 years old age. The family doctor decided that the issues were not due to cancer although no testing was done to rule out cancer.

Ten months later the patient consulted with a urologist who performed a digital examination on the prostate gland and took a PSA blood test. The man then discovered that his insurance carrier did not have the urologist in its list of approved physicians and he saw a different urologist who was approved.

The PSA test by the first urologist came back and that urologist recommended a biopsy. Unfortunately, that recommendation evidently was not related to the family doctor or the urologist approved by the insurance company. The approved urologist did not order a PSA blood test. The approved urologist also carried out a physical examination of the prostate but did not find any abnormalities and so concluded that the patient did not have cancer.

It took an additional two years before the patients prostate cancer was at long last detected. By that time, the cancer had spread outside the prostate and was now advanced. Had the cancer been detected when the patient initially informed his doctors that he was experiencing urinary problems, when he saw the first urologist, or even when he saw the second urologist, it would not have yet spread and, with treatment, the patient would have had approximately 97 percent chance of surviving the cancer. Since the cancer was already advanced at the time of diagnosis, however, the patient was likely to die from the cancer in under 5 years. The law firm that handled this lawsuit published that they were able to obtain a settlement during jury selection at trial for $2.5 million on behalf of the patient.

This case therefore illustrates 2 main types of failures. There was the failure on the part of the PCP and the second urologist to not follow the proper screening guidelines. The other error was one in communication. This took place when there was a miscommunication of the findings, suspicions, and recommendations of the urologist who was not approved by the insurance company and the other doctors. Although it is impossible to know if the PCP or the second urologist would have followed up on results of the PSA test from the first urologist or on that urologists suspicion and recommendation they at a minimum would have had information and perspective they were missing.