Posted on 08/07/2003 1:38:58 PM PDT by bedolido
WICHITA FALLS -- A mechanic is suing a clinic and two doctors, claiming they removed his penis and testicles without consulting him after they mistakenly thought he had cancer.
Hurshell Ralls, 67, seeks an unspecified amount in his negligence lawsuit filed against the Clinics of North Texas in Wichita Falls, Dr. John Stephen Dryden and Dr. Farid G. Khoury. The civil case is set for trial Aug. 25.
Ralls, who said he had a normal sex life with his wife before the 1999 amputation, said he remains angry with his doctors.
"I don't think they should have played God, myself," Ralls said Wednesday.
The clinic and doctors declined to comment.
Ralls said Dryden started treating him 15 years ago for kidney infections caused by lifelong bladder problems. Since he was in his mid-20s, Ralls said, he has urinated into a bag through a catheter attached to his ureters, the tubes carrying urine from the kidneys to the bladder.
Ralls said he went in for surgery in November 1999 after Dryden said a biopsy showed he had bladder cancer. Dryden and Khoury, who assisted in the surgery, never mentioned that the cancer could be spreading and that they might have to remove other organs, Ralls said.
In a February deposition, Dryden told Ralls' attorneys that while removing Ralls' bladder, he determined the cancer had spread to the penis.
"I was the one looking at it, and I've seen it. I mean, it was cancer," Dryden testified.
He said he did not take tissue samples to test for cancer because "I did not feel, in my medical judgment, that they were worthwhile."
Steve Briley, Ralls' attorney, said tests could have been done in 30 minutes in the same clinic.
Briley said a doctor looking at cell slides later found Ralls did not have penile cancer.
At least one without his special purpose.
Does Trent Lott have a spare one he could loan out? Lord knows the senate gop hasn't used a real one in years.
Welcome to cheesville.
But the lawyers won't be getting a windfall in the non-econ department with this suit. It's the lawyers who have lost--not the patients of Texas...
You seem to take a lot of notice of genital cases. The premise being--there's not enough money out there to compensate for this man's loss. Ergo, the sky's the limit? Quantifying this sort of loss is impossible, but I remain to assert that the best possible outcome is to keep the insurance alive for injured patients, rather than provide capricious, emotion-driven bonanzas that will kill insurance for all injured patients.
I've just endured a long conversation with a lawyer who wouldn't address what I regard as the most important issue in the malpractice debate--won't you please give it a whirl?
What would happen to this guy if there would have been no insurance at all? This is no chimera--I can point you to a new trend emerging in "going bare."
Would you have taken his case if there had been no insurance, and you had reason to believe that efforts had been made to make assets very hard to obtain?
Lawyers who care about the little guy ought to steward the insurance, plain and simple. And even if they only care about their hefty share of the settlement, they still ought to steward the insurance.
If you want on the new list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
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