An Ocala grandmother claims a local healthcare provider did not diagnose her breast cancer for several months, allowing the disease to advance to Stage IV while she awaited an appointment for imaging.
Attorneys representing Shonte D. Page filed the lawsuit against the University of Central Florida College of Medicine Graduate Medical Education Program and Heart of Florida Health Center in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Orange County on September 5.
According to the complaint, Page noticed a small lump in the upper left quadrant of her left breast in early March 2023. After she noticed the lump, Page allegedly scheduled a visit with her primary care practice at Heart of Florida Health Center. The lawsuit does not specify which Heart of Florida Health Center location Page visited. It does list her as a resident of Marion County.
Page says that on her first visit, she was seen by UCF resident Dr. Manal El-Hag for an evaluation of the lump. The complaint alleges the appointment was on March 24, 2023, which was the “first available office visit.”
During that appointment, which was under the supervision of family practitioner Dr. Jennifer Abernathy, Dr. El-Hag noted that a “non-tender one (1) cm mass” could be felt upon examination of Page’s breast.
The doctor noted that Page had a “family history of breast cancer” and documented that a “mammogram and ultrasound” were ordered, according to the complaint. The following week, when Page attempted to schedule an appointment at the Advanced Imaging Centers as she was instructed, the facility advised her that they had “not yet received any orders” from the health center.
Over the two ensuing weeks, Page claims she repeatedly contacted Heart of Florida and had to “wait on return calls.” The complaint notes that the two weeks “encompassed the Easter holiday.” Page claims that she was eventually told “someone would look into” her case and “get back to her.” The complaint alleges the individual expressed that there was “no urgency” and that she was “scheduled to be re-seen in the office in just another week or two anyway.”
On April 17, 2023, Page visited Heart of Florida for a second scheduled appointment. She was seen by a different resident, Dr. Hira Hussain, with the same supervising physician (Abernathy). Page claims Dr. Hussain’s records from that day clearly describe the grandmother’s concerns with not having undergone the “imaging studies.”
The complaint further alleges that Dr. Hussain’s notes show that an electronic order “had never been sent” to the Advanced Imaging Centers. The note indicates that the “orders would be ‘resent today.’”
During the exam with Dr. Hussain, the doctor identified a “large, firm mass” in Page’s left breast that was the size of a “half dollar.” According to the complaint, the mass had tripled in size since the previous exam, when it had been measured at the size of a penny.
Page’s attorneys allege that the doctors “did not institute new imaging orders of their own” at that point, and instead, faxed over the original order from March 24 to the Advanced Imaging Centers. As a result, despite what was now an “urgent situation,” the order contained “no instructions for the stat need for breast imaging studies.”
Page claims she was “reassured” there was “no concern with the imaging delay and no sense of urgency.”
“Despite the finding of a firm, palpable breast mass that had now rapidly enlarged between the two office visits, neither Dr. El-Hag, Dr. Hussain, nor Dr. Abernathy made a referral to a general surgeon for tissue biopsy of the mass in conjunction with the planned imaging,” reads the complaint.
Page says that, because the order contained no instructions on timing or expediency, Advanced Imaging Centers placed her “in a queue” that scheduled her surgery for July 2023, around three months after her second visit.
After being told of the delay, Page reached out to Heart of Florida for further assistance and claims she was given none.
On May 16, 2023, Page returned to Heart of Florida for a third visit for her breast lump and was again seen by Dr. Hussain. During this visit, the resident doctor was being supervised by a different doctor (Dr. Elvira S. Mercado).
In reviewing Page’s chart during that visit, Hussain apparently acknowledged that the group had never “made the orders stat” for her imaging.
Although the status was changed on the order, Page claims the old order originally written by Dr. El-Hag was once again faxed to Advanced Imaging Centers.
During the third examination of Page’s breast on May 16, 2023, Dr. Hussain noted that the lump was “getting even larger and was now painful.” At the time, Page expressed concerns that the lump was impacting her ability to work “as a caretaker herself.”
“Dr. Hussain and Dr. Mercado took no additional measures. They did not assure that the imaging be procured stat, nor did they contact a surgeon to assure that the breast lump be biopsied,” reads the complaint.
Page says that, after “much frustration, concern, and fear,” she made calls to other radiology facilities to try and get an appointment sooner than July 2023. She claims she was eventually successful in getting an appointment at Radiology Associates of Ocala Women’s Imaging Center on June 16, 2023.
A mammogram taken that day revealed a mass in Page’s breast that had now grown to 5.4 centimeters in its “greatest dimension,” according to the complaint.
With Heart of Florida’s knowledge, an attempt was made to “aspirate fluid from the lesion” in Page’s breast using “ultrasound guidance” on July 7, 2023. The complaint notes that the “needle aspiration of fluid was difficult” and the limited procedure “did not identify malignant cells.”
Regardless, Page says the pathologist noted a biopsy was needed since the mass remained. Page claims that Heart of Florida received this information, “yet continued to fail to obtain a surgical tissue biopsy” for her.
Over the next two months following the aspiration, Page began to experience “local and systemic signs of infection” as the breast mass took on a “virulent inflammatory course, producing infection, abscesses and ulcerated tissue tracks throughout her breast.”
She claims she required hospitalization and, believing she had “already been adequately worked up by her primary care providers who told her she only had a breast cyst,” she asked to initially concentrate on treating her infection.
On September 30, 2023, a surgical tissue biopsy was obtained at AdventHealth Ocala Hospital, approximately six months after Page first reported her breast mass to Heart of Florida. That biopsy confirmed an “invasive ductal carcinoma,” which is a form of breast cancer.
For the six weeks after receiving the diagnosis, Page claims she continued having problems with inflammation and infection “until a left breast mastectomy could be performed on November 27, 2023.” The complaint alleges the mastectomy was the “first definitive treatment for [Page’s] cancer,” coming approximately eight months after she first reported her breast lump to Heart of Florida.
The staging workup following the diagnosis revealed that Page’s cancer had “advanced to Stage IV with metastasis to lymph nodes and distant organs.”
Page began chemotherapy in January 2024, but claims she was already in a “weakened and debilitated” condition from the “advancing metastatic process in her body.”
“For over one year, she has since endured grueling adjuvant cancer treatments and associated complications from having to battle a cancer that was allowed to grow rapidly and unchecked for months in 2023, becoming aggressive and inflammatory in nature, and eventually disseminating throughout her tissues – all while under the eyes of her primary care physicians at Heart of Florida,” reads a portion of the complaint.
Page claims that the health center’s negligence deprived her of an earlier diagnosis that may have carried a “more favorable prognosis.” The complaint alleges that Page’s diagnosis reduces her “likelihood of 5-year survival to below 50%.”
Her attorneys claim Page’s pain, suffering, “and now grim prognosis” could have been prevented with an earlier diagnosis. They say it has “deeply impacted every aspect of” Page’s life and has devastated her family, of which she is the matriarch.
“It has devastated not only for Ms. Page, but her children and entire family, who have been deprived of the immeasurable joys, love and support they looked forward to sharing in the years ahead, and to which they were entitled,” according to the complaint.
Page is seeking over $50,000 in damages, exclusive of attorney’s fees and costs. She is being represented by Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, PA, of West Palm Beach.
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