How long should doctor wait to tell patient of bad MRI results?

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Quick Story

My sister-in-law has been diagnosed with a brain-stem tumor and just
underwent immediate surgery to relieve the pressure (shunt) and remove as
much of the tumor as they could. We are uncertain of the long-tem
diagnosis.

However - what is also bothering me is how long her ENT (ear/nose/throat)
doctor waited (3 days) AFTER having the MRI report to even tell her she had
a brain-stem tumor. She had been having severe headaches, dizziness, even
almost passing out a few times for the past few months. So finally her ENT
orders the MRI last Monday (a holiday) and it was read Tuesday morning.
Report shows large brain-stem tumor. Report is immediately sent over to her
ENT. He doesn't call her Tuesday, he doesn't call her Wednesday, he doesn't
even call her on Thursday. Finally -Thursday afternoon - she has a near
fainting spell at work and calls her ENT and demands to get in again that
afternoon. When she is again in his office that Thursday afternoon - the
doctor apparently becomes aware of the MRI report and tells her he can't
treat this condition and says she must IMMEDIATELY see a neurologist across
town. He then lets here drive alone - out of his office - across town to
see the neurologist who orders the immediate surgery the next day.

Anyway - I really want to tell the ENT doctor off for how long he waited to
give her that information. Had she not called he sees the ENT doctor again
on Thursday - God knows how much longer he would have waited. Is it
reasonable for a doctor to wait as long as he did to give a patient the
results of an MRI report that shows a brain-stem tumor???

Sorry, I don't know the answer to your question.

You can compare notes with (probably many) others in one (or more) of these
places.
Best wishes
J

http://www.tbts.org/ brain tumor support (includes lymphoma in the brain)

http://www.braintrust.org/services/support/ brain tumor
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foremost among which is the BRAINTMR mailing list.

The following is a list of support and information groups run by The
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"True Colors" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:PO3Zg.61902$uH6.3391@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
> X-No-Archive: Yes
>
>
> Quick Story
>
> My sister-in-law has been diagnosed with a brain-stem tumor and just
> underwent immediate surgery to relieve the pressure (shunt) and remove as
> much of the tumor as they could. We are uncertain of the long-tem
> diagnosis.
>
> However - what is also bothering me is how long her ENT (ear/nose/throat)
> doctor waited (3 days) AFTER having the MRI report to even tell her she
> had a brain-stem tumor. She had been having severe headaches, dizziness,
> even almost passing out a few times for the past few months. So finally
> her ENT orders the MRI last Monday (a holiday) and it was read Tuesday
> morning. Report shows large brain-stem tumor. Report is immediately sent
> over to her ENT. He doesn't call her Tuesday, he doesn't call her
> Wednesday, he doesn't even call her on Thursday. Finally -Thursday
> afternoon - she has a near fainting spell at work and calls her ENT and
> demands to get in again that afternoon. When she is again in his office
> that Thursday afternoon - the doctor apparently becomes aware of the MRI
> report and tells her he can't treat this condition and says she must
> IMMEDIATELY see a neurologist across town. He then lets here drive
> alone - out of his office - across town to see the neurologist who orders
> the immediate surgery the next day.
>
> Anyway - I really want to tell the ENT doctor off for how long he waited
> to give her that information. Had she not called he sees the ENT doctor
> again on Thursday - God knows how much longer he would have waited. Is it
> reasonable for a doctor to wait as long as he did to give a patient the
> results of an MRI report that shows a brain-stem tumor???
>
>
>

Why don't you ask him? It's always best to have both sides of any
story.......

I don't know if it's the same in all areas of the country, I assume it
is but the patient is allowed to go to the place where MRIs, CT scans,
Xrays etc. are done and get both a hardcopy of the written report and a
disc (cdrom) which has the actual scans or xrays on it at no charge
usually. It is usually ready within 24 hours of the scans. I go get
report copies and discs of all scans done on me for my records. I also
get copies of all bloodwork, lab tests, surgery reports, pathology
reports, chemo notes, office visits, etc. It is the patient's rght to
obtain these things for your records so that heaven forbid someone does
make a mistale you have the records if it winds up in court to insure no
suspicious disapearances of records and also to have for any new doctors
to have ready access to your history. It is of course water under the
bridge now but your freind coud have picked up a copy of those reports
themselves the following day. As far as the doctor's negligance I'd say
yes he was wrong. The xray (imaging folks always fax a wet copy or
preliminary report to your doc same day in most cases or no later than
24 hours so her doc should have known of this next day and shold have
taken action. However i'd guess something like this is beyond the scope
of an ENT That said I'd get dated copies of everything and talk to an
attorney about it. In my opinion doctors have an obligation to be
expediant with test results to their patients, especially if it is grave
or urgent news. If they cannot give their patients that courtesy then
they do not deserve to be doctors. It's hard to say if a few days would
have had any impact on the outcome but if things do not go well I'd put
that decision in the hands of a jury. This should have been addressed
by a primary doc or if it were me having fainting spells I'd have gone
right to the emergency room and refused to leave till someone got to the
bottom of it. I hope your freind will fare well and be OK. Doctors time
is spread thin and many are overworked, I'll give them that but in most
cases that overwork is not due to a love of the craft or concern for
fellow man but pure and simple greed. In this day and time the patient
needs to be informed, perseverant, ask questions and insist on being in
the loop and kept informed. Sadly those that just leave things up to the
doctors and their in many cases incompetant staff these days get lost in
the shuffle and suffer. The squeaky wheel always gets the grease first,
make noise.

That does seem outrageous. I think tests with unusual results are always
flagged (at least I know that any tests I've had with abnormal results have
an asterisk or something to indicate a problem).

With something this serious, that delay is surprising.

Someone else suggested taking legal action. I would be very hesitant to do
that. First of all, you need all your strength to fight the cancer, not to
fight a legal battle (which sadly is often the case in many malpractice
situations). Secondly, I think you'd be hard put to demonstrate true damages
over a 3-4 day delay. How do you prove that the outcome has been impacted??
Good luck getting experts in that area.

Just my opinion.

But also Steph gave you some good advice. There might be another side to the
story. Is it possible the doctor tried to contact the patient but had a
wrong number or was unsuccessful for some reason (hard to believe but...).
Was the office closed for some reason? Again, it might be worth finding out

Mel

"True Colors" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:PO3Zg.61902$uH6.3391@twister.nyroc.rr.com...
> X-No-Archive: Yes
>
>
> Quick Story
>
> My sister-in-law has been diagnosed with a brain-stem tumor and just
> underwent immediate surgery to relieve the pressure (shunt) and remove as
> much of the tumor as they could. We are uncertain of the long-tem
> diagnosis.
>
> However - what is also bothering me is how long her ENT (ear/nose/throat)
> doctor waited (3 days) AFTER having the MRI report to even tell her she
> had a brain-stem tumor. She had been having severe headaches, dizziness,
> even almost passing out a few times for the past few months. So finally
> her ENT orders the MRI last Monday (a holiday) and it was read Tuesday
> morning. Report shows large brain-stem tumor. Report is immediately sent
> over to her ENT. He doesn't call her Tuesday, he doesn't call her
> Wednesday, he doesn't even call her on Thursday. Finally -Thursday
> afternoon - she has a near fainting spell at work and calls her ENT and
> demands to get in again that afternoon. When she is again in his office
> that Thursday afternoon - the doctor apparently becomes aware of the MRI
> report and tells her he can't treat this condition and says she must
> IMMEDIATELY see a neurologist across town. He then lets here drive
> alone - out of his office - across town to see the neurologist who orders
> the immediate surgery the next day.
>
> Anyway - I really want to tell the ENT doctor off for how long he waited
> to give her that information. Had she not called he sees the ENT doctor
> again on Thursday - God knows how much longer he would have waited. Is it
> reasonable for a doctor to wait as long as he did to give a patient the
> results of an MRI report that shows a brain-stem tumor???
>
>
>