Jury Awards $2.75 Million To Advanced Prostate Cancer Patient Whose Doctor Did Only Partial Screening

Prostate cancer strikes African-American males earlier and frequently more aggressively than the rest of the population. Men of African-American descent are at higher risk of having prostate cancer at a younger age. Due to this, doctors typically agree that physicians should discuss prostate cancer screening wiith males of African-American descent once the patient turns forty-five. A physician who fails to follow the guidelines for an African-American male patient might be liable should it later be found that the patient had prostate cancer which progressed to an advanced stage because of the physician's failure to inform the patient about screening tests.

But beyond the guidelines, it may also be malpractice if a patient specifically request to be screened for a given cancer and the doctor does not do so. For example, in a published case the patient was an African-American man, age 41, who asked to be tested for prostate cancer. He requested for the screening test after being part of a campaign to increase awareness about the risk middle-aged African-American men face with respect to prostate cancer.

The physician conducted a digital examination and identified no abnormalities. The doctor ordered blood tests for the patient yet failed to get a PSA test. The doctor failed to inform the patient that no PSA test had been done. The patient saw the physician again two years later. The physician again failed to order a PSA test. This time the physician did not even perform a digital examination.

By conducting a physical examination of the prostate and ordering blood tests the physician induced a scenario in which the patient thought that he had been correctly screened for prostate cancer and that everything came back normal showing nothing that would suggest he had cancer. In such a case, nearly all patients would probably think that a PSA test was actually ordered along with the rest of the blood tests which has bee ordered on the second visit. Either way, though, he was justified in thinking he had gone through a full screening in the earlier visit.

Move forward to later that same year. The patient goes back to the same medical practice but is seen by a different physician. This time the doctor did not just do a digital examination but also ordered a PSA test. The outcome - the patient had stage 4 prostate cancer which had spread to the bone. Given that the man was now turning forty-five and under the guidelines the doctor would normally only then have at least had a conversation about screening. In this instance, however, the man had specifically asked to be screened earlier and the actions of the physician had led him to believe he had been.

The law firm that handled this matter took it to trial and achieved a $2.75 Million jury verdict. The defense appealed and the parties settled for a confidential amount as the appeals was pending. Although the amount of the settlement was confidential it was less than the amount of the verdict. This is not an unusual way for both parties to reduce the risk of an adverse ruling by the Appeals Court. In this case the Appeals Court subsequently denied the appeal.