Comment: The case Michael was describing involved the changing of medical records by a doctor. Although this is suspected to occur in many cases where malpractice occurs, it can be very difficult to prove. With the introduction of electronic medical records, proof has become even more difficult. However, we have developed several methods of detecting altered records. The changes in this case were very easy to demonstrate: We had copies of the before and after records! The doctor lied all the way through his deposition until the very end, when the copies of the original records were revealed, and he was trapped.
The moment of truth, when the defendant Doctor was confronted with the pre-altered medical records, was one of the most dramatic moments in any lawyer’s career. After telling a series of bald-faced lies for seven hours about what he had done, and where he had done it on the plaintiff’s body, the defendant surgeon admitted that after the plaintiff was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer (from which she would sadly die one year later), he went back to his medical chart from 14 months earlier and changed his notes regarding the location of the lump that he had palpated during his physical examination of her breast. Even went so far as to alter a diagram to change the location of the lump that he had felt over one year earlier. Sadly, when it was first found, plaintiff would probably have been cured of her cancer. Instead, by the time it was removed, it had already spread to vital organs and resulted in plaintiff’s premature death in her late 40s.
Of note, the case settled for one of the largest amounts for the failure to diagnose breast cancer in Massachusetts history.