Suit alleges doctor altered record

By David Weiss
Court Reporter

WILKES-BARRE – A doctor accused of failing to tell a patient she had cancer is now being accused of altering medical records in the case to try to cover up his error.

Court papers filed this week say Dr. Feroz A. Sheikh altered the records of Margaret Radginski after she filed suit against him late last year.

Sheikh’s alteration was done to try and show he actually told Radginski she had cancer back in 2005, the court papers, filed by Radginski’s attorney, Michael J. Foley, said.

The alteration is a violation of a state statute, the court papers said, and could lead to a license suspension for Sheikh.

An employee at Sheikh’s office said the doctor was unavailable Thursday afternoon. His attorney did not return a call.

Radginski, of Hunlock Creek, filed suit against Sheikh, Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, its corporate owner, Wyoming Valley Health Care System, and Surgical Specialists of Wyoming Valley in December.

The suit, filed in Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas, said Radginski was 61 when she had surgery for diverticulitis, a colon problem, in November 2005.

Additional tests revealed a mass on the colon. The specimen was sent to a hospital lab and later determined to be cancer, the suit said.

But Sheikh went on vacation shortly after Radginski’s November surgery and she was not advised of the test results “because of inadequate communication between” Sheikh and others at the hospital.

Sheikh dictated a discharge summary for Radginski in January and specified her diagnosis as diverticulitis, the suit said. The report does not mention any diagnosis of colon cancer, the suit said.

Sheikh should have sent Radginski for chemotherapy and other treatment, but he never sent her for any follow-up care, the suit said.

The cancer progressed, the suit said, until August 2007, when Radginski was told of the cancer diagnosis. She had surgery for the cancer in September when she was 63.

She and her husband are seeking more than $75,000.

Prior to that suit being filed, Radginski’s hospital chart was provided to her by the hospital in November 2007. The chart contained a Sheikh note written on Nov. 11, 2005, that indicated Radginski was “doing well” and discharged home.

After the suit was filed in December, the hospital again gave a copy of the chart to Radginski. That same note of Nov. 11, 2005, was changed to indicate Sheikh told Radginski of the cancer, the court papers said.

The court papers say Radginski’s attorney believes Sheikh, after being sued, went to the hospital’s records department to make the alteration.

The court papers said Sheikh’s alteration violated a state code regarding the preservation and accuracy of medical records that could lead to suspension of his license.

Kevin McDonald, a hospital spokesman, declined comment.