Defendant Women’s Specialists was unanimously found to be negligent in their failure to diagnose a young woman’s breast cancer, taking what was a curable cancer to a terminal diagnosis which will cause their patient’s wrongful death. The jury in Santa Fe included three LANL scientists and 9 other Santa Fe County residents.
Our kind and lovely client who was working on her education to become a sign language interpreter and working at Whole Foods when finally diagnosed has endured a tortured path of chemotherapy and brain radiation for her 4th stage metastatic cancer in her breast, lungs, liver, bones and brain. She has been in and out of the hospital for complications from her chemotherapy and has over $1.4M in medical bills for this care that was totally preventable with proper early diagnosis. Our client wants only that the Women’s Specialists Physician Assistant who failed to care for her properly learn to take
women’s concerns seriously and follow the protocols in place that would have diagnosed her cancer early, and that Women’s Specialists make sure their physician assistants know how to care for their patients.
The brave and dedicated Gynecology expert physician and Breast Cancer Specialist physician that testified that Women’s Specialists’ employee violated the standard of care owed to their patient, and the fact that our client’s cancer was curable at the time of the violation but will now shortly take her life are an absolute credit to their profession. No medical malpractice case in New Mexico like this one can go to a jury with qualified expert physicians believing and testifying in court that the provider was negligent.
Our client wishes to thank UNM Cancer Center and their amazing physicians and support staff, and her radiation oncologist at Presbyterian for doing their best to help her down this horrible path she is walking. She has been homeless, because of her inability to work and her brain metastases have made her judgment clouded. Even with help we have been allowed to provide her for housing; she cannot survive on the little she is entitled to while she is dying from cancer. The jury saw the value of our client’s life lost, that she will never marry or have children or attain her dream of being a translator for deaf people, and the suffering she has, is and will endure from cancer until her life is ended. She will not likely live to be 35 years old. The jury found Women’s Specialist to be responsible to pay $18M for the damage its employees have caused.
Women’s Specialists has filed a Motion with the Court to knock down the jury’s Verdict to our State’s medical malpractice cap which is a fraction of the jury’s Verdict for the harm caused to the patient. The jury asked why Women’s Specialists did not settle. The only answer we could give them is that they never offered a dime.