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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow Veterans Affairs failed to stop a pathologist who misdiagnosed 3,000 cases
ROGERS, Ark. By the time he and his wife Sara faced Veterans Affairs medical staff across a conference table in September, Kelly Copelin had lost 75 pounds and could swallow only small pieces of solid food. Radiation therapy had blistered his throat.
This was the moment they would finally learn why their lives were so changed. Why when he went to the Fayetteville VA three years earlier with a severe earache, the biopsy came back negative and he was given antibiotics instead of treatment for what was diagnosed 13 months later as late-stage neck and throat cancer.
The pathologist who had misdiagnosed Copelins diseased tissue in 2015 was intoxicated, the hospitals chief physician told the couple. He had failed to see the squamous cell carcinoma on the slide before him, the doctor said.
We are so sorry, Copelin, 63, remembers him saying.
Sobbing, the retired Air Force master sergeant said he asked whether he would be suffering this much if the cancer had been caught before he was at stage 4, with tumors spread to both sides of his face. The treatment would have been the same, doctors told him, stopping short of answering his question directly.
The assurances and apologies have come as cold comfort to the families of 21,000 veterans diagnosed by chief pathologist Robert Morris Levy over 12 years, many of whom will live for years with the consequences of his mistakes.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/how-veterans-affairs-failed-to-stop-a-pathologist-who-misdiagnosed-3000-cases/ar-AAGyXlg?li=BBnb7Kz
rusty fender
(3,428 posts)mahatmakanejeeves
(57,414 posts)How the VA failed to stop a pathologist who misdiagnosed 3,000 cases: In one, a patient was given antibiotics instead of treatment for what he learned 13 months later was cancer. Pathologist was drunk when he misdiagnosed him. @reinlwapo
Link to tweet
This lede from @Reinlwapo will break your heart into a million pieces. So will the rest of this remarkable accountability reporting on how Veterans Affairs failed to stop a pathologist who misdiagnosed 3,000 cases:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-veterans-affairs-failed-to-stop-a-pathologist-who-misdiagnosed-3000-cases/2019/08/30/d66fc098-c5b9-11e9-9986-1fb3e4397be4_story.html
Link to tweet
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)The entire VA system is rotted.
DVRacer
(707 posts)Unlike civilian doctors VA medical staff is protected against any lawsuits.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Did not know the docs were safe from lawsuits. That can keep the bad docs from scrutiny.
DVRacer
(707 posts)To protect them from lawsuits if the screwed up under fire.