One Woman, 6 Missed Diagnoses, A Lesson for Us All

You know I’m a fan of Jerome Groopman, the author of How Doctors Think.

In his incredibly eye-opening book, he tells of trying to get a correct diagnosis for his own health problem, and the fact that four doctors had four different diagnoses for him, and four differing ideas of how to treat it. As an oncologist himself, he was appalled. It spurred him on to consider the questions of how and why doctors diagnose and treat medical problems and disease.

I was reminded of Dr. Groopman when I read Carla McClain’s story in the (Tucson) Arizona Daily Star about a woman, Norma Greer, who just KNEW something was wrong with her despite the fact the SIX doctors told her she was OK. Eventually, armed with one-hour’s worth of research from the internet, Norma found a doctor out of town who diagnosed her Inflammatory Breast Cancer. She’s transitioning through treatment for it now, but most certainly, six week’s worth of IBC missed diagnoses have shortened her life.

Norma’s lesson is a lesson for anyone who “knows” something is wrong with them. We have those little voices in our heads. We know when we’re being blown off by doctors who, for whatever reason, don’t take the time to look further than what pops into their heads. We need to trust our intuition and take action.

If we don’t take responsibility ourselves, no one else — not even the professionals we’ve hired — is going to do it for us.

Sadly, we suffered through this with my mother-in-law a year ago. She was miserable with what her doctor (and those of us who don’t know medicine) thought were stomach, gastro-related problems. In fact, she died of ovarian cancer this past July — which had been at the root of her stomach upset and was too advanced to treat by the time it was finally figured out.

My own misdiagnosis was just the opposite — still a lesson, but not in the same way.

Norma — thank you so much for sharing your story with others. You are a fixer in one of the best ways.

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