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It sound to me as though the guy thought that he was just getting a circumcision and as the operation proceeded, the cancer was discovered and removed before he woke up.

That's what I got out of it. Perhaps I'm the only one here who actually agrees with the plaintiff... I don't agree that he should have been awarded $16 million dollars but... The penile cancer was not immediately life threatening and the doctor had not recieved permission to operate on it. This poor man had no chance to make love to his wife one last time (or 20). His sex life is over... period. I think the doctor was out of bounds doing something so radical without permission.

The doctor had permission. From the article:

"Seaton signed a consent form for a routine circumcision. Within the signed forms, a disclaimer included language that recognized Patterson's right to perform any further surgery he deemed necessary if unforeseen conditions arose, Robinson said."

I would say that the discovery of cancer counts as an unforeseen circumstance.

If women that change gender can get an add-en-ectomy as Rush calls it, so could he if he was still young...I am sure the jury read the permission slips everyone signs that go to surgery....there should have also been a pathology report to back up the claim.

I worked in the hospital for years and most people don't even read the permission slip or the anesthesia permit....read them people, don't just take things for granted...my father was scheduled for surgery (tumor on kidney) after talking with the anthetheologist he canceled....I worked at the same hospital and had access to all the consults and biopsy's and none came up with cancer but 90% of all tumors on the kidney are cancer, they always take out the kidney to be sure.....

I could palpate his stomach and feel the tumor it sometimes bothered him but was benign. The doctor said it could have been with him for years. He said he remembered a couple of decades earlier getting kicked by a horse he was working with for possible Mounted Division (he was a Mounted man in Detroit retired in 1950 at the age of 50 and lived to be 85. Died of acute leukemia about 8 years after refusing surgery...

I don't recommend surgery cancels, he made his own decision. Just read all your permits..(no one ever told him what to do, but he said after that he just had a feeling that if he had gone to surgery, he wouldn't have survived. He just had a gut feeling that he should just go home.....

“The penile cancer was not immediately life threatening and the doctor had not recieved permission to operate on it.”

I’m in your court. The penile cancer was not going to kill him in the next week or so, and it really would be a tremendous shock to wake up that way without having anticipated it. However, because the man had signed the permission slip, perhaps the jury had no choice but to find as they did. Moral of the story: Read what you sign first, or get someone else to do it.

***That’s what I got out of it. Perhaps I’m the only one here who actually agrees with the plaintiff... I don’t agree that he should have been awarded $16 million dollars but... The penile cancer was not immediately life threatening and the doctor had not recieved permission to operate on it. This poor man had no chance to make love to his wife one last time (or 20). His sex life is over... period. I think the doctor was out of bounds doing something so radical without permission. ***

I agree with you. The guy didn’t have to option to get a second opinion - to be satisfied that this was the right and only option. Heck, just a two day wait may have been enough to make peace with the loss and probably wouldn’t have cost him health-wise.

I’ve signed those consent forms myself. When I give permission for the doc to use his judgement, I’m thinking that this gives him permission to stop unforeseen bleeding to to explore a little more. NOT TO GIVE ME A HYSTERECTOMY.

The poor man deserved the time to come to terms with his condition and make his own decisions.

Those posters who agree with the court decision must be looking forward to Obamacare because the decision to operate once, instead obtaining consent, is the type of decision that we could all experience under Obamacare.

I have a hard time believing that the doctor could tell it was cancerous just by looking at it.

That requires biopsies from everything I’ve been told by every doctor I’ve ever talked to.

Even so, he could have finished up and addressed the issue later. I can’t believe that it was so immediately life threatening that the guy couldn’t have gone back later, better informed and prepared.

And really, if it was cancer and he decided not to receive the *treatment*, that after all, is his choice.

I think the doctor was wrong in making that kind of rash decision.