As everyone knows, the road to becoming a doctor is a long one. Individuals spend many years in school before taking on their own patients. Because of all the training doctors receive, there is an assumption that when one seeks assistance from them, whatever the issue is, will be diagnosed and addressed. Sadly, this is not always the case.  A Pittsburgh area man, who believes a doctor did not treat his now deceased wife properly, recently filed a medical malpractice lawsuit related to what he alleges is her wrongful death.

Though it was known that his wife had a lesion on her liver, the man asserts that her oncologist did not properly monitor it as he indicated he would. A tumor was discovered when the woman and her husband traveled to the Mayo Clinic. Both the doctor, as well as University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, were named as defendants in the lawsuit.

By the time the tumor was diagnosed it had grown quite large—the size of a grapefruit. A little over a year later, the woman died. She was 51-years-old.

There are many reasons that a survivor might decide to file a medical malpractice lawsuit after an incident such as this one. In some cases, those left behind relied upon the person who died for financial support. Other times, the lawsuit provides a sense of closure. In this case, the woman’s husband indicated that he believes the lawsuit is what she would want him to do. The man is seeking an unspecified amount of damages.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “UPMC, cancer doctor named in lawsuit for alleged malpractice,” Gavan Gideon, Aug. 6, 2013