NBME 1 Section 4 Q 15

[LuckiestOne]

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A 40 year old woman discovers a breast mass during self-examination, at routine health maintenance examination 2 months ago, her physician had told her all findings were normal. After having a mmogram that is suspicious for breast cancer, the patient begins to wonder if her physician failed to notice the lump during the exam 2 months ago. She is most likely to sue the physician under which of the following circumstances?

occurence of breast cancer
poor communicatino betwen the patient and physician
potential financial reward for the patient
strong pressure from family members.

What do you guys think the answer is? Behavioral science questions are nuts!

 

[LuckiestOne]

Poor communication between the patient and physician. I can't remember the study but I'm sure you can find it by doing a basic pubmed search but it essentially pointed to how patients are less likely to sue physicians who have good repoire with their patients and are honest about mistakes.

That's the answer that is going around as well, but where I am confused is the fact that the question is asking for the CIRCUMSTANCES that the patient would sue the physician.

I felt that A would be a more adequate answer because why would she sue if nothing happened?
Also it doesn't say much about how the physician communicated with the patient, it just tells us that the physician told the patient that she had all normal findings.

What do you think?

 

[LuckiestOne]

The logic is that she will be more likely to find something to sue about if there is not a good patient-physician relationship, whether its a minor incident or something as severe as breast cancer. This is especially true if she is already thinking that the doctor may have missed something (the breast lump).

I understand that, but as I stated before, the question is asking us what circumstance she would sue the physician for. There's nothing said about the quality of communication between the patient and the physician in the question, and the physician already told her that her conditions were normal.

Wouldn't the patient want to just go back to the physician to double check if she really strongly felt that it was a cancer? And if it it truly a cancer and the physician had missed it 2 months ago, then she would sue him, wouldn't she?

She wouldn't just sue him because she didn't clearly understand him..

 

[Boardz]

A 40 year old woman discovers a breast mass during self-examination, at routine health maintenance examination 2 months ago, her physician had told her all findings were normal. After having a mmogram that is suspicious for breast cancer, the patient begins to wonder if her physician failed to notice the lump during the exam 2 months ago. She is most likely to sue the physician under which of the following circumstances?

occurence of breast cancer
poor communicatino betwen the patient and physician
potential financial reward for the patient
strong pressure from family members.

What do you guys think the answer is? Behavioral science questions are nuts!

poor comm. first aid.

 

[glykon]

I understand that, but as I stated before, the question is asking us what circumstance she would sue the physician for. There's nothing said about the quality of communication between the patient and the physician in the question, and the physician already told her that her conditions were normal.

Wouldn't the patient want to just go back to the physician to double check if she really strongly felt that it was a cancer? And if it it truly a cancer and the physician had missed it 2 months ago, then she would sue him, wouldn't she?

She wouldn't just sue him because she didn't clearly understand him..

You're both right and this isn't a clear-cut question. If indeed she has cancer, the physician made a mistake during the physical exam and would most likely be sued for this mistake.
The thing with good communication is that if people like u, they're unlikely to sue and more likely to forgive ur mistake if u admit it and feel sorry for it.
So what do they say the correct answer is?

 

[Boardz]

You're both right and this isn't a clear-cut question. If indeed she has cancer, the physician made a mistake during the physical exam and would most likely be sued for this mistake.
The thing with good communication is that if people like u, they're unlikely to sue and more likely to forgive ur mistake if u admit it and feel sorry for it.
So what do they say the correct answer is?

wrong.

 

[LuckiestOne]

You're both right and this isn't a clear-cut question. If indeed she has cancer, the physician made a mistake during the physical exam and would most likely be sued for this mistake.
The thing with good communication is that if people like u, they're unlikely to sue and more likely to forgive ur mistake if u admit it and feel sorry for it.
So what do they say the correct answer is?

It's an NBME question so I don't know the correct answer.. haha, behavioral sciences questions are tricky!