Diagnostic Dropped Ball: Nobody Followed Up on Lung Nodule

After a referral visit to a pulmonologist to follow up on a worrisome CT, none of the three parties—the PCP, the patient, and the pulmonologist—ever addressed the issue of the lung nodule again. The patient saw her primary care doctor several times for check-ups and minor issues over the next several years. The patient never returned to see the pulmonologist, and was not explicitly told by either doctor that she might have cancer. Four years after her visit with the pulmonologist, the patient became symptomatic from lung disease and was found to have inoperable cancer, metastatic to cervical spine. She died within months of her diagnosis.