When you know somebody doesn't like you...

[Giancarlo]

Check out these stories.

Copyright 2003 ABC News
Aug. 11 -- After 67-year-old Hurshell Ralls went into surgery for bladder cancer, he came out of surgery missing more than he ever expected. His penis and testicles were gone.

"My wife had to hold my hand in the bed there. And she said 'Honey it's over. They got all the cancer.' And she waited a few minutes and then said 'But they had to remove your penis.' And I was one mad dude, you know," Ralls said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.

Ralls, a mechanic, says doctors never warned him or his wife that amputation of the penis and testicles might have been part of surgery before he went in for the procedure in November 1999. Ralls filed a negligence lawsuit against the Clinics of North Texas in Wichita Falls, and the doctors who operated on him. The civil case is set for trial Aug. 25.

"It was never even discussed. And I felt like he ought to have at least told us that this might be a possibility so that we could have talked it over even before he was admitted to the hospital," said Thelma Ralls, his wife. In a February deposition, Ralls' doctor said that he determined the cancer had spread to the penis while he was removing Ralls' bladder. Doctors did not send a tissue sample to the lab until after the surgery. A Dallas doctor who examined cell slides later found that Ralls did not have penile cancer.

The Ralls' case may sound outrageous, but for cancer patients across the country, medical errors are something they — and many other hospital patients — face with alarming frequency.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reported in 2001 that 95 percent of doctors have witnessed a major medical mistake, and that many of them involved cancer. When Johns Hopkins reviewed tissue samples from thousands of cancer patients around the country, they found one out of every 71 cases was misdiagnosed.

Both Breasts Removed, No Cancer

Frank Barerra is another cancer patient who was the victim of an error. He was actually in surgery, about to have his prostate removed, when a call came from the pathology department — there had been a mistake. His slides showed no cancer.

"You can imagine — it was like waking up from a bad dream," Barerra said. "It never occurred to me that a pathology lab could just bungle a decision like that."

Last January, Good Morning America interviewed Linda McDougal, who was misdiagnosed with breast cancer. McDougal was given a double mastectomy at the United Hospital of St. Paul, Minn., in May 2002. After the surgery, McDougal was told
that she actually had no signs of cancer.

"My surgeon walked in and said that she had bad news, and she had no other way of telling us other than to put it on the table. And that I didn't have cancer," McDougal said. "And my immediate reaction was, great, you got it all. And then she said, you don't understand. You never had cancer. And it was instant shock. I couldn't even react to it."

When McDougal appeared on Good Morning America, the hospital that did the operation offered an apology. Dr. Laurel Krause, a senior pathologist at the hospital said that two patient slides at the hospital were inadvertently switched.

"We deeply regret what happened, and wish we had made that clear at the time," Krause said. "At the time, Linda was very angry, and justifiably so."

But to victims of medical errors, sometimes an apology can't make up for what they've lost.

"I really felt like they played God and took it in their hands and decided to do it," Thelma Ralls said. "This is Hurshell's life, and my life. And to me they destroyed our sexual life."

Total ow.

 

[KosmikFool]

owwie

 

[viperman]

That's gotta hurt

 

[F1man]

Jesus! Ow!

 

[Rat Bastid]

These doctors & clinics had better get their friggin' act together!
My Father just had a pollup (sp?) removed from his colon. I'm glad that's all they removed!
Cheez- Can you say LAWSUIT?!?

 

[qjasonp]

Well that does suck.but not surprising after all doctors are human to:not that theres any excuse for what happen in these cases.It's just relay not that surprising.

 

[Attila_Da_Hun]

wow, imagine waking up and you manhood was gone. that suck!

 

[Chris Hendriks]

i hope the guy wins that lawsuit.he deserves it.maybe with the money he can get some new "equipment"

 

[Attila_Da_Hun]

I saw on TV, some guy lost his penis due to penial cancer and they mad him a new one out of his middle finger. I was like WTF!! But they said it was extremly painful to urinate for a couple week becuase he was peaing out of his finger.

 

[Rat Bastid]

Yeah, but do you want some dead guy's stuff where your own buddy used to be? Not to mention it would need MORE surgery & that takes a lot out of you. I've had 2 hernia surgeries, so I know what I'm talking about.
This poor guy got royally SCREWED!

 

[Attila_Da_Hun]

Originally posted by Rat Bastid
Yeah, but do you want some dead guy's stuff where your own buddy used to be? Not to mention it would need MORE surgery & that takes a lot out of you. I've had 2 hernia surgeries, so I know what I'm talking about.
This poor guy got royally SCREWED!

Gotta watch what your lifting. Man that must hurt, where did you get the hernias?

 

[Rat Bastid]

The first one was in '99. I was worfing as a plumber & I was moving a shipment of 21' lengths of pipe. The second was in '01. Believe it or not, I was sitting on the toilet! It turned out that the first doctor used an outdated, flawed procedure! I tried to sue, but malpractice is REALLY hard in NY. you won't get anything unless there's dismemberment or death or something much worse than my case.

 

[Rat Bastid]

Tried to edit- it should say "working".

 

[Attila_Da_Hun]

that sucks

 

[1X83Z]

Originally posted by Rat Bastid
Tried to edit- it should say "working".

Worfing is fine.

 

[Rat Bastid]

Originally posted by M5Power
Worfing is fine.

What am I, a Klingon?

 

[the_cobbinator]

Originally posted by Rat Bastid
What am I, a Klingon?

In health we heard about doctors who haven't been trained properly in poor countries, and well... you get the idea.

 

[wee_man]

Yeah I know how you feel rat bastid. I had a waterseal I think (a special type of hernia i think + I might of mentioned this before on another thread so...). When they came to give me the anesthetic (spelling) which was in a certain part of my spine. Except thing was the surgen who was giving it to me missed the area and inserted it into the wrong part of my spine. I was paralised from the waist down for about a month. Although I could feel stuff it would be excrutiating pain. That did hurt. I wanted to sue. I don't know why we didn't in the end .

 

[Attila_Da_Hun]

Originally posted by wee_man
Yeah I know how you feel rat bastid. I had a waterseal I think (a special type of hernia i think + I might of mentioned this before on another thread so...). When they came to give me the anesthetic (spelling) which was in a certain part of my spine. Except thing was the surgen who was giving it to me missed the area and inserted it into the wrong part of my spine. I was paralised from the waist down for about a month. Although I could feel stuff it would be excrutiating pain. That did hurt. I wanted to sue. I don't know why we didn't in the end .

Are you ok now?

 

[Chris Hendriks]

Originally posted by Attila_Da_Hun
I saw on TV, some guy lost his penis due to penial cancer and they mad him a new one out of his middle finger. I was like WTF!! But they said it was extremly painful to urinate for a couple week becuase he was peaing out of his finger.

 

[Rat Bastid]

Wee-man; Oooo, that SUCKS! (Though, it does explain a few things...... )
I know that in New York, a patient has 5 years to file a malpractice claim. Maybe there are similar laws in England. If this didn't happen too long ago, maybe you could look into it.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Doctors today are horrible. There might be some good ones, but they know how great they are and they charge a $2,500 fee per year just to get to see them. They deduct the cost of seeing them from this one year payment, and it does rollover to the next year.

But most Doctors today have to make up for lost money from people who don't or can't pay by performing unnecessary surgeries on the people who can pay. Remember, it is BUSINESS in this country. They don't do it for themselves, but for the Hospitals they are affiliated with. They are loosing a lot of money these days.

 

[Talentless]

only good review and stringent documentation can help stop this, along with good traning. x rays need to be marked as soon a possible. it should be imposible to mix slides. if they are marked, then they need to be marked better. or something.

 

[Attila_Da_Hun]

Originally posted by Chris Hendriks

Yea that is so very funny.

 

[viperman]

Originally posted by Chris Hendriks

I would like to see you pee out of your finger.