A doctor’s negligence can have dire consequences on patients of any age in New York. The parents of a young boy recently filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against a couple of radiologists who allegedly did not detect signs that their son had cancer. The parents claimed that the doctors thus allowed his cancer to spread over a two-year period.
The boy’s parents said the two doctors missed multiple opportunities to detect their son’s early-stage nerve cell cancer, known as neuroblastoma. The parents said they took the boy to a medical center for evaluation thinking he had an upper respiratory infection. He had an X-ray done, and two separate radiologists reported seeing nothing suspicious in the X-rays. However, the X-rays actually reportedly revealed a 4-centimeter mass in the top right area of the abdomen.
According to the parents, the mass indicated that their son had cancer. However, the doctors did not recognize this and failed to order more testing. The boy was 1.5 years old at the time, and he is now 4 years old. He was just recently diagnosed with the cancer, which has spread to his body’s tissues, bones, skull and spine. Because of the spread of the cancer, the chance it will be cured is small, which means the boy’s chances of dying are increased.
Since being diagnosed, the boy has undergone many chemotherapy sessions and surgeries. The parents in their medical malpractice suit are seeking damages of over $50,000, alleging that the doctors were negligent and intentionally inflicted emotional distress. If doctors in New York do not exercise a reasonable degree of care when determining whether or not a patient has a disease, these physicians may be held responsible for the patient’s worsened physical condition or death resulting from their failure to properly diagnose him or her.
Source: thetimes-tribune.com, “Lawsuit claims doctors failed to detect boy’s cancer“, Terrie Morgan-Besecker, July 10, 2015
