Suing ‘Dr. Doe’
May 29, 2008
The children of a woman who died of cancer in June 2005 filed suit last month against her doctors, alleging they neglected to recommend regular screenings that could have led to an earlier diagnosis and saved her life.
True, lawsuits claiming a doctor missed some early indication of what later became a serious or even fatal condition are fairly common. What struck me about this suit is the lead defendant: John Doe, M.D.
It’s also true that the use of “Doe” defendants is common in malpractice cases. But this complaint says Dr. Doe (and his later-named colleague, Dr. Samuel Croff Jr.), “provided primary care and treatment” to the decedent, Barbara Jameson, for nearly a year before she reported to the emergency room in April 2005 with “a massive intra-abdominal cancer.”
Maybe Dr. Doe was a behind-the-scenes type who read the results of imaging tests — the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, doesn’t say.
In fact, much of what happened here remains unknown as the case is in the early stages of litigation; and there may be a difference between what Jameson knew about the doctors who allegedly treated her for a year and what her children are able to figure out.
Still, if a patient is in the dark about the identity of her primary care physician, might that not foretell more disastrous communication problems down the line?
BRENDAN KEARNEY, Legal Affairs Writer
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