Delay in Ordering MRI, Diagnosing Cancer Prompts $28M Award

​A large, national health system has been ordered to pay $28.2 million to a plaintiff in a malpractice case who claimed that the health system's physicians delayed a test that could have identified cancer and prevented the need to amputate her leg, according to a March 26, 2015, Los Angeles Times article. The patient was 17 years old when she first visited a medical office affiliated with the health system for lower back pain. The patient and her mother said that they requested a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan several times but that physicians did not order the test. Instead, the physicians allegedly recommended that the patient lose weight and referred her to a nutritionist and an acupuncturist.