Grieving family awarded $7.8M after doctors failed to diagnose woman’s cancer 2 years in a row

Key Points:

• A Multnomah County jury awarded $7.8 million to the family of Wendi Lui, a Portland woman whose lung cancer was missed on breast MRI scans in 2018 and 2019, allowing the tumor to grow and spread before diagnosis in 2020.
• The jury found radiologist Dr. Kari A. Thomas at Legacy Good Samaritan Medical Center negligent for failing to identify the suspicious mass on the 2019 scan, contributing to Lui’s death several years later.
• Wendi Lui’s husband, Gene Lui, a psychiatrist formerly with Legacy Health, pursued the case despite settlement offers that required silence, aiming to expose the error and promote accountability in healthcare.
• Had the cancer been diagnosed earlier, Wendi Lui’s survival rate would have been 85%-90%, but the delayed diagnosis reduced it to 26%, leading to years of aggressive treatment before she chose physician-assisted death in 2023.
• Gene Lui hopes the verdict will encourage radiologists to be more vigilant, potentially preventing similar tragedies in the future by improving early detection and patient outcomes.