I'm seeking legal advice. I know exactly who can advise me and just what I want to ask him. But the issue is very delicate. It's like this:
My wife is afraid of cancer and car accidents, in that order or the reverse. To prevent her early death from road accidents, she doesn't drive. To protect herself from cancer, she has frequent check-ups. Her brother is a lawyer specializing in malpractice suits. One of the lawyer's medical consultants is my wife's gynecologist. This same specialist saw my wife during her menstrual period, and after seeing negative results for a battery of tests, sent her for a comprehensive blood test. She informed him of this particular time of the month but he replied that it wasn't important. She did the blood test on a Monday. On Friday morning the nurse in her endocrinologist's office (she has a mild thyroid disorder) called her and advised her to see a doctor, preferably a gynecologist, concerning the high CA 125 reading. It was 41, six points higher than the maximum level. As this was Friday, not everybody was available for consultation. There was of course, the Internet, but as I was at work, my wife was afraid to discover the seriousness of her condition alone. She spoke to a family doctor who was on call and he said that CA 125 was a marker for tumors in the breast or intestine. He did not use the C-word. She eventually spoke to her own family doctor who advised her to do another blood test within a week.
I arrived home shortly after midday and was sent directly to Google. Right away I learned that CA means cancer antigen, and CA 125 is a marker for cancer of the ovaries. But I also learned that many factors cause a false positive, among them menstruation and pregnancy. I immediately relaxed. I was certain that this was the case. Having never lost anyone close to me at the time, I had come to believe in my own immortality, or something close to it.
On Sunday I took my wife for a blood test. This would show that her CA 125 was normal. On Monday I took her to see her gynecologist. The results of the blood test had not yet arrived and the doctor was extremely concerned about something. He said that menstruation or not, the high CA 125 reading must be investigated. He recommended another comprehensive blood test. My wife wondered about an ultrasound exam and he agreed, advising her to go to a clinic in Jerusalem. After hearing of this conversation, I suggested that the doctor was covering up. He had made a mistake sending her to do a blood test during her period and refused to admit it. Instead of saying so, and advising her that a new test would correct his mistake, he scared her even more, saying that the reading had to be investigated.
At the ultrasound clinic, one of the staff said that the CA 125 blood test is generally done on the fifth day of the monthly cycle, after menstruation has ended. This confirmed my opinion that my wife had become a victim of medical incompetence.
On Wednesday the results of the latest blood test showed that the CA 125 level was 19, at the lower end of the scale. The cancer scare was over.
Conclusions: Malpractice is a serious charge and I'm not sure it applies here. This is certainly not a case of negligence, as I think that medical personnel did too much. What I do know is that my wife, the patient, and I suffered from mental anguish for a number of days, and that no doctor was willing to assuage our fears. One doctor made a mistake. The false positive result was sent to a different doctor, unaware of the full picture. She became frightened and assumed the worst. The original specialist, realizing that his mistake had been "leaked" to another doctor, hid behind his status. This resulted in more anguish for the patient.
For this reason I seek legal advice. Why is it that doctors cannot consider the possibility of a false positive and look to retest for a true negative? Why can't they admit mistakes? Why do they support each other unconditionally? Why does a Health Insurance Provider send a patient's blood test results to a different doctor? Who can answer these questions?
