Iowa Man’s Prostate Removed After Wrong Cancer Diagnosis: Lawsuit

DES MOINES, IA — Rickie Lee Huitt can’t get his prostate gland back, but the central Iowa man is suing the clinic he said mixed up his tissue sample slides with another patient’s, resulting in an incorrect cancer diagnosis and a debilitating, unnecessary surgery.

The lawsuit against the Iowa Clinic filed by Huitt, 67, is scheduled to go to trial April 1 in Polk County District Court, according to the Des Moines Register. The medical malpractice lawsuit, filed in 2017, claims a clinic pathologist, Dr. Joy Trueblood, submitted an erroneous report that Huitt’s prostate gland was cancerous.

As a result, his urologist, Dr. Carl Meyer, told Huitt he had a serious case of cancer, the lawsuit says. Huitt's prostate gland was removed in April 2017 in a surgery performed at Iowa Methodist Medical Center, but after the surgery, another pathologist examined the removed prostate and found no evidence of cancer, Huitt’s lawyer said.

Huitt said in the lawsuit that he has suffered incontinence and other serious side effects of unnecessary prostate cancer surgery.

“It’s mind-boggling,” Huitt’s lawyer, Randy Shanks, told the Register. “It’s a terrible, sad thing.”

The Iowa Clinic, which is owned by about 140 doctors, including many of the area’s specialists, hopes to settle the lawsuit in mediation, CEO Ed Brown told the Register.

» For the complete story, go to the Des Moines Register.

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