Veteran sues VA so they will get it right for others

Cancer-fighting vet sues the VA after failing to ID tumor
Darryl E. Owens | Sentinel Staff Writer
March 1, 2008
An Ormond Beach veteran faces an uncertain future after doctors at the Department of Veterans Affairs clinic in Daytona Beach missed a cancerous tumor on his chest X-ray, a mistake for which military officials have apologized.

Ted Schrolucke, 63, who served in Germany for the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1967, has filed a $200,000 claim against the VA. The complaint says doctors at the William V. Chappell Jr. VA Outpatient Clinic failed to diagnose a late-stage mass in his right lung that had developed from a previous bout he had with colon cancer.

VA officials earlier this month admitted the error and offered its apologies in a memo it sent to Schrolucke.

But he wanted more than a concession and a mea culpa. He wanted to give other vets a warning that an incorrect diagnosis could happen to them. But the VA handles such matters internally, he was told, so he went public.

"Veterans are walking in there every day getting X-rays and sitting down with doctors and are told everything is OK," he said. "I want them to fix this."

Schrolucke's problems began in August 2005, when he turned to the VA to cover his medications and care until his wife could add him to her insurance plan. His own private policy had become too expensive, he said.

In his VA paperwork, he noted his 2002 colon-cancer diagnosis. Doctors took X-rays, and Schrolucke "walked out of there feeling cancer-free."

In March 2006, under his wife's insurance plan, he visited a non-VA doctor. A blood test suggested cancer, and a repeat of the test six weeks later proved more telling. Scans showed "a big tumor on my right lung," Schrolucke said.
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