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215 Comments
- tpoc, on 10/12/2007, -9/+650It would be ironic if he gets his money, and then dies
- fkr3, on 10/12/2007, -15/+327Stupid is when you sue your dry cleaner for millions of dollars over a pair of pants.
Suing when 3 doctors tell you you're dying, and you spend everything you've got - cause you can't take it with you - sounds pretty fair. - futureb, on 10/12/2007, -25/+223I smell a really interesting lawsuit.
But seriously, who cares about the $$ if you're going to live? I'd rather be a broke bastard than a dead one. - Braxo, on 10/12/2007, -21/+212I'm actually somewhat on the guys side of this. Not to the tune of getting millions, but the amount that he spent.
The doctor's said he had cancer and will die when in fact his pancreas was just inflamed. Seems like a huge mis- diagnosis to me.
AND I am one that is against stupid lawsuits and such. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+195At least he didn't go on a mass killing spree aye!
- knoit911, on 10/12/2007, -10/+184how will he pay for the lawyer?
- SpFmmTrist, on 10/12/2007, -30/+158Talk about irony.
- sarazen, on 10/12/2007, -14/+137"I'm really pleased that I've got a second chance in life... but if you haven't got no money after all this, which is my fault -- I spent it all -- they should pay something back."
Wow. That sense of entitlement even if the face of admitted responsibility is just breathtaking. Wow. - bennyboy371, on 10/12/2007, -4/+60It's called REPLY!
- LogicBomB, on 10/12/2007, -9/+59Although I wish the guy could get his money back, it's a slippery sloap.
Imagine if you will that this guy get's every cent he spent back because of mis-diagnosis. Now you have doctor's second guessing what they tell patients for fear of backlash. Instead of "you have weeks to live, get your affairs in order" it becomes "well, there is margin for error, but if we are right there is a good chance you'll die soon, but we're not 100% sure".
The guy got dealt a ***** hand and I wish I could reasonably say he deserves it all back but the precedent would open the floodgates for abuse. Told your dying? Spending it all! Live? Get it all back! I think the government should help him get back on his feet but not in turn-key way. - CroqueMitaine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+43I have a good news and a bad news..... I can really feel for this guy, the same thing happened to our family too:
My brother was diagnosed with cancer and had been given half a year max to live. He decided to live it up. Not buy spending all his money but spending the most quality time with his friends and family. When finally 2 months ago... ( one full year after his 6 months death sentence) he was told that he did not have cancer. Sorry about that say the doctor. After this ordeal he still had all his money ( having decided to give it to his two sons for their education) and a good settlement form the government ( I'm from Quebec health care is free, ***** like this happens everywhere but in this case no lawyers were needed)
In the end he came out of it with a new take on life and stronger family bonds....
Same situation different ending. - DreKor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+38Here's an interesting way to look at this:
The guy wants to sue the hospital for misdiagnosing the problems with his pancreas. The hospital says it's not their fault and that no other diagnosis would have been made.
1. Inflamed pancreas is diagnosed as cancer. Man spends all his money on himself. One year later, pancreas is fine. Hospital says "too bad".
2 Pancreatic Cancer is diagnosed as inflamation. Man does nothing. One year later, man is dead. Hospital settles out of court with surviving family rather than risk media circus around malpractice suit.
In case 2, I don't think the "no other diagnosis would have been made" defense would work. - xwaixwieda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+35I work in cancer researcher and I'd like to disagree with you.
The reason we "treat the symptoms" is because by the time cancer is diagnosed in most patients, it's beyond the point of curative treatment. Early detection of many cancers is still incredibly difficult, if not impossible with current technology. People with lung, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers usually show up already in stage 3 or 4. Most times palliative care is pursued simply to increase a patients quality of life, since treatment of metastatic cancer is commonly more fatal than the cancer itself. I would love it if we were able to catch every pre-neoplastic lesion in a patient, but since we can't, I'd say we make them as comfortable as possible and keep up on research to find a cure for all hundreds of different types of cancer out there. - weeeezzll, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29The hospital claims that the diagnosis would have been the same, and that might be true, but all his lawyer has to do is find one doctor that can explain why he would not have diagnosed it as cancer and "BAM!" you've got a case.
Lawyers can make a case out of anything...don't you know this by now? - davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -4/+31Perform a biopsy to make sure the diagnosis was correct before telling him he was going to die in a year.
- All4not, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27I'd do the same thing after a 2nd opinion and the same result. You can't take it with you! :)
- Mahalo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30So thanks for sharing your ignorance with us. We were dying to know what you thought of it.
- eplawless, on 10/12/2007, -9/+34The diagnosis was exactly what it should have been, given the symptoms. Every other competent doctor would have told him the same. There's no case here, unless he wants to somehow sue modern medicine.
- AXNJAXN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23Didn't I see this on Scrubs?
- laserblazer, on 10/12/2007, -15/+37That kind of misdiagnosis constitutes malpractice. It's not like he recovered from diagnosed cancer - he never had cancer at all.
- Cyber_Akuma, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24"he'd likely be screwed here in the US but in the UK who the hell knows what the legal system will do. "
Are you sure you don't have that backwards? I can't get through one day without hearing/reading about another crazy lawsuit here in the US. - wiirdo, on 10/12/2007, -9/+31His compensation should be a swift kick in the ass.
- Salgat, on 10/12/2007, -6/+26Well I hope you know that false diagnosis is not that rare, this guy just wasn't using his head when it came to numbers. Anyways, just because you think your going to die soon doesn't mean you can spend irresponsibly, if that were true we'd have a ton of broke old people who were dependant on the gover..oh wait that already happened.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18At least he didn't make a list of people to take with him. I guess it could have been worse.
- BrokenVisage, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19He should throw himself into a volcano now.
- SwissCamel, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20You are not a doctor. Neither am I. But if you read the article the hospital says that in the circumstances no other diagnosis should have been made. Medicine is not so much as science as it is an art form. In this instance the doctor was wrong, it's regretable but no one should put 100% faith in any medical diagnosis.
- xtmno3, on 10/12/2007, -11/+25Good to see the entitlement generation in full swing. I assume the digging me down to mean you don't agree, in which case I say that you have gone down a treacherous path. By not holding people accountable for their actions, you open the door for a lot of problems. What if the man had found out from the doctors that he had only 36 hrs to live and in response murdered someone, only to find out he is healthy? By your reasoning he is not responsible for his actions, so a person gets murdered with no one to hold at fault. Where is the justice there?
- newsheatdotcom, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Wow, still too early. Read your post as "Random capitalism"
- DangerMouse9, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Better be careful with that one. He'll think he has ass cancer next and spend more money.
- TrainingName, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13I'd just like to take the time to provide my valuable insight into this poor man's situation.
PWN3D - opticsnake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Damn dude! Learn to spell.
And get a new forum name. NoBodY is 1337 n0 m0r3 - Onwlyix, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18It's called EMPHASIS!
- Ramble, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16Multi-million dollar settlement. That's like what? £2?
- revmhatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I have an Aunt that was in a similar situation. She now has a full body tattoo...so much for that teaching degree!
- xwaixwieda, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Yeah, it was on Scrubs in one of the early seasons
- BGFeltenink, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12The guy can't just "get a job" though, he's past 60. You want the poor guy to work at McDs or something?
- Cyber_Akuma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10My friend had cancer. Guess what? They actually treated him, so far by all signs it seems gone. (I just hope it stays gone). Thats it, a few months of treatment, no medicine ro hospital visits for it for the rest of his life just to "keep it under control" so I will have to disagree with you about them not wanting to cure patients.
- davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10@chris9902
Would the state pay for the second opinion? - gldfshnpcklejar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11What if he had donated all that money to charity...
- Legionaire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10The 5 year survival rate for Pancreas Cancer in the UK is 3%
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=861
With such low odds , I can understand how "living it up" might make sense,
As for not paying his mortgage and still having his house...I would very much like to find out how he did that ! ;) - DrDigg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Wow my wife with breast cancer doesn't think it is corporate scam. You ass.
- da_bradler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9You know if they would just kill him everybodys problems would be solved
- Mitchl, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14Well, with our current medical and legal system, I suppose I support the patient here in getting some restitution for the incorrect diagnosis. Dude now doesn't have money to live and could go on what 30 more years? It is the medical professionals whose diagnosis he relied on in making the decision to blow his wad.
But in general, my feeling is dude should just be happy and get over it and get a job. We need to stop looking at doctors at having any final answers and just at making the best guestimates that they can. Decisions about treatment (or in this case, blowing your savings) should be fully in the hands of the patient and I would say you should not be able to be treated by the same doctor giving you such advise on treatment. We need to lower the costs of medicine, and the only way in which to do that is to eliminate almost all risk of lawsuit from the doctors. Malpractice suits should be grievous and based on gross negligence, like leaving a sponge in a body, or performing an operation on the wrong patient. Other than that, complaints about medical professionals should go to a medical review board which can make reasonable restitution in some cases to the patient, but whose main purpose would be to remove the doctor from practice or suspend the areas in which he can practice while he is retrained to reduce future errors.
As long as we go on making windfall judgements and the threat of that continues, then the huge margins will continue in medicine to cover the costs of insurance and of the threat of the eventual lawsuit (and many doctors think it is always when not if they will be sued). - DrDigg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Pancreatic cancer is often difficult to diagnose. Frequently the biopsies are negative even when there is cancer. So a negative biopsy (which he may have had) still often leads to the presumptive diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Also the man may have an elevation in a tumor marker called Ca 19-9. This is frequently elevated significantly in pancreatic cancer, unfortunately it can occasionally be elevated in pancreatitis (pancreatic inflammation).
This case is not that unusual. In fact I just saw someone who was told she had pancreatic cancer 4 months ago, but we still aren't sure. The unusual part is that idiot went on a spending spree. - davesbrain, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Sounds like he would be happier dead.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9wow, it's good that we have laws and punishment to inhibate weird teenage idiots like yourself.
Sucks to be that guy though:P - cr3ative, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Are you actually serious?
The dangerous levels of retard seeping from your comment makes me wonder if you're being sarcastic or not. - neuropsychguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10"What he's trying to do is hold the doctors accountable for effectively lying to him, even if they didn't mean to."
You can't lie to someone if you don't mean to. Lying by its definition is intentionally misleading someone else. It's not lying if you really don't know better. Telling something that is not true does not always equal lying.
What happened here is a case of a false positive. Doctors are almost always more willing to incorrectly diagnose someone with a disease than to incorrectly diagnose someone as disease-free.
As sad as his story is, the doctors shouldn't be responsible for his actions so why should he be compensated for his impulsivity? Should people who are addicted to gambling and who gamble away all of their money be compensated by the casinos because the casino proved too much of a temptation? No. - DangerMouse9, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Has Lifetime or Hallmark contacted him to buy his life story? ;)
- wiirdo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@vguard --- WTF?
Linus Pauling died of cancer in 1994. Was he trying to make a point to not give in to corporate greed?
Oh, the irony! -
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