Welcome, and thank you for joining me. I am Gerry Oginski in New York Medical Malpractice and Personal Injury Trial Lawyer practicing law here in the State of New York.
Today's location is a little bit different, we are doing it outdoors today. You are going to hear birds chirping, it's a beautiful day here and great day.
Today's topic is Failure to Diagnose Cancer and there are many types of cases that we see with this, from failure to diagnose breast cancer to failure to diagnose lung cancer.
In a breast cancer case often times a patient will have gone to their doctor complaining about a particular lump that they have felt during the course of their own examination, whether they are in the shower, whether they are getting dressed and they noticed the lump. And now they go to the physician and they've mentioned a particular lump.
The problem arises when the physician either ignores it, examines it and says, don't worry, it's nothing to worry about, or sends them off to have certain tests done and the tests are not properly read. And as a result the patient is reassured that there is nothing wrong and they continue on with their lives. It's only when the lump gets bigger and more pronounced, or starts leaking fluid. It's usually at that point that the diagnosis is made of breast cancer. And then the patient always wants to know, well, I complained about this particular condition a year ago, two years ago.
If this had been detected a year ago would my treatment options be the same? Would the outcome be the same? Because as you know from watching my video tips it's crucial New York for me as an attorney to be able to prove, number one, that it was wrong-doing; number two that the wrong-doing caused injury, and number three that the injury is significant and permanent. And with these failure to diagnose cancer cases the other key questions that must be answered to evaluate liability, meaning, who anyone is responsible is what stage was the cancer in at the time that you first noticed and recognized it and brought it to the attention of a doctor.
If all been told from day one that the sooner you find a cancer the earlier you find it, the greater the treatment options are and the greater chance of success for treating that particular cancer. So if you find a cancer in the very early stages, in stage one you have a much better outcome and a much better chance of success of treating it, compared to stage three or stage four which is the most significant and severe stage of cancer.
The important questions that we have to ask any expert who is evaluating a failure to diagnose cancer case is -- would the treatment have been different, would the outcome have been different, would your survival, would your life expectancy have been different? If the answers to all of those questions are yes, those things would be the different then. Now we have something to work with and we can proceed to look at what treatment options you have now and what your damages and injuries are.
And that's it for today's tip on Failure to Diagnose Cancer, and I am Gerry Oginski, thank you for joining me. Have a great day!
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