Lawsuit Accuses Washington Hospital of Removing and Misplacing Man’s Potentially Cancerous Bladder Tumor

A lawsuit filed in Washington alleges that the hospital removed a potentially cancerous bladder tumor from a man before implanting it.

Jeremy Morton-Maxson, a 39-year-old Seattle resident with a family history of bladder cancer, was instructed by a urologist to have the tumor removed for testing. The referral came after he noticed blood in his urine in March 2022, according to the lawsuit and a statement to McClatchy News.

According to the complaint filed in late June, Morton-Maxson underwent surgery on Aug. 17, 2022, at the University of Washington Medical Center’s Northwest Hospital. After the operation, his doctors said the tumor was “probably cancerous”, stressing the need for a pathological examination to confirm the diagnosis.

However, Morton-Maxson found himself in a state of anxious waiting for several weeks because no definitive diagnosis had been given, according to the statement.

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Morton-Maxson received disturbing news on September 2, 2022, when the urologist who performed his surgery informed him that the hospital had misplaced his tumor, preventing his analysis. These developments, according to the complaint and statement, prompted Morton-Maxson to file a lawsuit against the University of Washington and those responsible for his medical care, alleging negligence and liability.

Although the lawsuit does not name the medical providers involved, it is the first to be reported The Seattle Times September 6.

“Anyone who has battled cancer knows that the uncertainty surrounding the disease is paralyzing, and in my case, the uncertainty was compounded by the hospital’s error,” Morton-Maxson said in a press release. “I’m a young man and I wake up every morning with this hanging over my head,” added Morton-Maxson.

In response to Morton-Maxson’s appeal in King County Superior Court, UW Medicine said Aug. 14 that his tumor, identified as a papillary lesion, was not located or examined by the hospital’s pathology department after surgery. In a statement, Morton-Maxson’s attorney, Austin Neff, said his client had “limited rights and difficult choices.”

“If the tumor had been malignant, the pathology report would have told us how aggressive the cancer is and would have helped his care team make key decisions, including which targeted therapies would best serve Jeremy,” Neff said in a statement.

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As a result, doctors gave Morton-Maxson two choices: either undergo “painful and invasive diagnostic” tests every two months to examine the bladder or opt for preventive chemotherapy, according to the statement.

Preventive chemotherapy was not in line with Morton-Maxson’s preferences, as he believed that surgery could have potentially eliminated any risk of cancer, he told The Seattle Times. This is why he chose the alternative option of undergoing diagnostic procedures every 60 days. As the newspaper reported, he no longer had problems urinating.

During this ordeal, Morton-Maxson claims UW Medicine has yet to apologize for losing his tumor.

“I understand that we all make mistakes – I know how many hospital nurses and technicians are understaffed, overworked and underpaid, which I’m sure contributed to this,” Morton-Maxson said. “But in those cases, you have to put your hand up and say ‘I messed up and I’m sorry.’ ”

After the incident, Morton-Maxson suffered pain, suffering, mental anguish, emotional distress, inconvenience, disability and various other challenges, according to the complaint. He is conducting legal proceedings to seek compensation for this damage.

Morton-Maxson said if UW Medicine had taken responsibility for its mistake and offered an apology, the matter would not have escalated to a legal case.

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“It was a breach of the standard of care not to remove the papillary lesion during surgery and subject it to pathological evaluation,” UW Medicine responded to Morton-Maxson’s complaint.

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Source: HIS Education