Jury finds doctor liable for death from cancer

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An Olney surgeon’s failure to follow up on a suspicious lump on his patient’s chest X-ray contributed to the 79-year-old woman’s death from lung cancer, a Montgomery County jury found.

The jury awarded more than $690,000 in damages last week for the 2005 death of Doreen Beavers.

Dr. Ronald H. Uscinski had ordered the X-ray in preparation for performing back surgery on Beavers in February 2003. The report Uscinski received from Drs. Artin Aharonian and Jack Goode, both Rockville radiologists, stated that a mass had been found on Beavers’ right lung.

Uscinski, however, failed to notify Beavers or order any follow-up examination or treatment, according to the lawsuit.

“Had Dr. Uscinski acted within the appropriate standard of care, he would have notified the patient of the abnormality and ordered the appropriate follow-up,” said James D. Cardea, who represented Beavers’ daughter and the estates of Beavers and her husband. “By the time it was diagnosed in the fall of 2004, the cancer had spread throughout her body and was no longer curable.”

Beavers learned of the cancer 19 months after Uscinski received the report, when she suffered shortness of breath, according to Cardea, of Schochor, Federico & Staton P.A. in Baltimore.

After that incident, another set of chest X-rays was taken on Sept. 21, 2004. Those X-rays revealed a lung mass that led to a follow-up CT scan and biopsy.

The tests revealed adenocarcinoma of the right lung.

Despite radiation and chemotherapy treatments, Beavers died on Feb. 16, 2005.

Her husband, Elmer, died more than three years later, in May 2008, six months before the lawsuit was filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

Uscinski’s attorneys did not return telephone messages seeking comment. He was represented by Steven A. Hamilton and Karen S. Karlin of Hamilton, Altman, Canale & Dillon LLC in Bethesda.

In addition to Uscinski, the lawsuit named Aharonian and Goode as defendants. Judge Ronald B. Rubin dismissed the case against Aharonian as a matter of law before the case went to the jury, finding that the plaintiff had not established a causal connection between his treatment of Beavers and her death.

The jury, after the 10-day trial, found Uscinski — but not Goode — liable in Beavers’ death.

Aharonian’s attorney, Daniel J. Moore of Moore & Jackson LLC in Towson, declined to comment on the case.

Goode’s attorney, Andrew E. Vernick, did not return telephone messages seeking comment. Vernick is with Wharton, Levin, Ehrmantraut & Klein PA in Annapolis.

Cardea, in the complaint, stated that Beavers had suffered “unending physical pain, emotional anguish, fear and anxiety” over her medical condition and her estate had incurred medical, funeral and burial expenses.

Cardea also claimed that the medical negligence cost Elmer Beavers the “love, support, guidance, advice and comfort” of his wife.

For the couple’s daughter, Darci Pickering, “the death of her mother represents a tragedy from which she will never recover,” the complaint stated.

The jury’s award of $691,564.74 was divided among Pickering and her parents’ estates.

Doreen Beavers’ estate was awarded $250,000 in non-economic damages, $20,169.74 in medical expenses and $1,395 in funeral costs.

The jury awarded Elmer Beavers’ estate $150,000 in non-economic damages and $45,000 in household services.

Pickering was awarded $225,000 in non-economic damages.