SAIGH LAW, P.L.L.C.

Archive for May, 2009

The family of a renowned Harvard scientist and Author who passed away after doctors failed to identify a cancer lesion has filed a malpractice lawsuit that names two of Boston’s most famous hospitals as defendants.

Photo Credit: Kathy Chapman

Stephen Jay Gould, a best-selling writer and world-renowned biologist, died at 60 from his condition despite x-rays taken of the cancer in a period of time sufficient for it to be treated.

According to his family, his cancer went undiagnosed by three doctors at the two hospitals because they failed to identify the cancer lesion on an X-ray.

“He wasn’t diagnosed until it had already metastasized. That’s malpractice right there, the top cancer institute, Dana Farber, and the top oncologists, you figure it would be a shock to find yourself in fourth-stage terminal cancer,” Gould’s widow, Rhonda Roland Shearer said.

Gould went for screening three times per year, according to the lawsuit. In February 2001, an X-ray was taken of Gould’s lungs, yet the radiologists noticed nothing. The next X-ray, taken one year later in New York City, showed lung cancer that had gone to Gould’s liver, spleen and brain. “All of a sudden, out of the head of Zeus, he has fourth-stage cancer,” Shearer said. In 10 weeks time, Stephen Gould was dead. The family’s attorney then uncovered the X-ray from 2001 that revealed a 1-inch cancer lesion.

“At the time when the lung cancer was curable, it inexplicably was not detected by three physicians,” attorney Alex MacDonald said.

Brigham and Women’s, where the two radiologists worked, said it would respond through the legal process.

[SOURCE]
The Boston Channel Lawsuit Article on Acclaimed Harvard Scientist