Singh is also accused of trying to cover up her incorrect diagnosis.
An Indian American pathologist is facing lawsuit after a Kansas-based patient complained about wrongly diagnosing her with a pancreatic tumor and unnecessarily removing parts of her organs.
Pathologist Dr Meenakshi Singh is also accused of trying to cover up her incorrect diagnosis, the lawsuit added.
KCUR reported that the complaint was moved by Wendy Ann Noon Berner, a Kansas based woman against Dr Singh, who was the former chairwoman of the pathology department, University of Kansas Hospital.
Berner has alleged that she was wrongly diagnosed as having a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor following which the doctor performed a surgery and removed part of her pancreas and several internal organs in September 2015.
She had to undergo the surgery since the pancreatic tumor is believed to be a life threatening tumor which could aggravate as incurable within five years if not administered with a surgery.
The lawsuit has named Dr Singh and Dr Timothy M. Schmitt, who performed the surgery, as defendants, along with the hospital. The other defendants named in the lawsuit are the University of Kansas Medical Center and the University of Kansas Physicians that employs physicians who practice at the medical center.
According to the lawsuit, Berner learned about her misdiagnosis only when Dr. Lowell Tilzer, a pathologist and a former chairman of the pathology department filed a lawsuit against the hospital.
The lawsuit filed almost a year ago had claimed that the hospital acted against him after he came across the misdiagnosis and discussed it with the Joint Commission that accredits and certifies hospitals.
Hospital spokesman Dennis McCulloch said the health of its patients is the hospital system’s top priority.
“We need to be respectful of patient privacy and confidentiality, and because of that we are limited in what we can say on this matter,” McCulloch said in a statement. “That said, we do believe that our physicians and staff acted appropriately and with the best interests of our patient in mind.”
Berner filed the lawsuit in Wyandotte County District Court on August 1. She has pointed in the suit that federal regulators had investigated Tilzer’s allegations.
The lawsuit said Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in a report concluded that the hospital’s “deficient practices placed all patients receiving services at (the) hospital at risk for receiving care that does not meet acceptable quality and standards.”
According to the official website of University of Kansas Medical Center, Dr. Meenakshi Singh completed her MBBS and MD from Christian Medical College & Hospital, Punjab University, India. She did her residency in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, University of Colorado, Denver.
Her profile says she is specialized in biomarkers for cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment; preneoplastic lesions and cancers of the breast and gynecologic cancer