Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in California
refused a colonoscopy
My father recently passed away due to complications for a colon resection. He was 61. For the past 11 years he has been asking his physician for a colonoscopy. The physician refused saying there was no need for one to be done since there is no history of colon cancer in the family. My father went back 3 or 4 times and saw two different doctors and they kept on refusing. Finally, my dad switched to Kaiser (he was at Blue Cross earlier) and they gave him a colonoscopy and discovered a big tumor on his transverse colon. If the routine colonoscopy would have been done the tumor would have just been a polyp and would've been easily removed. My dad was very upset and started talking to a lawyer about this. He had to get the tumor removed quickly and had a colon resection. My dad never healed properly from the colon resection surgery and stayed in the hospital for 11 days and then on the 12th day he had a massive heart attack due to all the stress of the surgery. We are having an autopsy done.
Do we have a case?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: refused a colonoscopy
The rules say that no medical malpractice case can be filed without first obtaining an opinion from a doctor in that field. Your opinion or mine is irrelevant. If the new doctor won't agree to provide you such opinion, then you need to consult with other doctors to see if any will after they review the medical file. Your facts sound like lack of care by the original doctors. I'd be happy to discuss the facts and issues to help you.
Re: refused a colonoscopy
Possibly.
Any documentation of the request to the original primary care physician?
Did the new Kaiser docs document a complaint from him about non-responsivemness of the PCP to prior requests?
They are recommneded in 50 + year olds. It seems odd it would be refused. It will also depend on how the PCP documented any such encounters.
Then again Cancer cases based on delayed diagnosis are difficult at best. Issue arise as to whether earlier diagnosis would assure ealrier detection and avoidance of the more extensive surgery.
And then again there are the questions as to other co-morbidities your Dad may have been suffering from making his survival iffy even with earlier diagnosis and treatment.
All theses are questions an expert physician would have to address.
But if the requests and unreasoned/unreasonable refusals can be proven, the chances are better than even.
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