The Patients’ Voice: Exposing the Truth in Healthcare · 2025-10-11 · 11 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
40 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
This episode examines a preventable medical misdiagnosis case involving a rural patient in his 60s who was diagnosed with blood cancer and treated with chemotherapy before a second opinion revealed he never had cancer. Krista Hughes, founder and CEO of Hughes Advocacy and board-certified patient advocate, walks through the cascade of clinical failures: initial oncologist diagnosis leading to chemo treatment, subsequent pneumonia complications, premature hospital discharge despite patient concerns, misdiagnosis of diabetes (actually prednisone side effects), and improper blood pressure management. When the patient finally sought second opinions with a new oncologist, pulmonologist, primary care physician, and endocrinologist, imaging (PET scan) and bone marrow biopsy revealed no lesions and no cancer. The endocrinologist confirmed no diabetes existed. Hughes emphasizes critical gaps in care coordination, lack of shared decision-making, absence of empathy, and the chain of iatrogenic harm caused by unnecessary medication. The episode provides a framework for patients to advocate for themselves: trusting intuition, demanding answers, obtaining multiple opinions, and reporting instances of patient safety decline to hospital administration - key lessons for any patient navigating complex healthcare situations.
The patient was diagnosed with blood cancer and given chemotherapy, then developed pneumonia, was prematurely discharged from the hospital, developed subsequent infections, and was misdiagnosed with diabetes. When he finally received second opinions, imaging and bone marrow biopsy revealed he never had cancer at all.
The patient's blood sugar levels became elevated as a side effect of prednisone he was prescribed for pneumonia, but his medical team attributed this to new-onset diabetes and started him on insulin without recognizing the prednisone was the cause.
A PET scan and bone marrow biopsy should have been performed before initiating chemotherapy; when these were finally done during the second opinion process, they revealed no lesions and no cancer.
Red flags include dismissal of patient concerns, lack of care coordination between specialists, early discharge despite unresolved symptoms, and multiple new diagnoses appearing suddenly without clear root cause analysis.
Listen to your gut, push for answers, demand second or third opinions from different doctors, consider hiring a patient advocate, and report instances of patient safety decline to the hospital administration.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode contains a useful patient advocacy framework (listen to your gut, get second opinions, push for answers, involve an advocate) and identifies genuine systemic failures (lack of care coordination, premature discharge, medication cascades from misdiagnosis). However, the insights are relatively surface-level and largely confirmatory rather than novel - the problems identified (communication failures, lack of care coordination) are well-known in healthcare. The bulk of the episode is narrative case description rather than dense, actionable insight.
You know, doctors might have a PhD and their specialty, but you have a PhD when it comes to your body. You need to push and demand for answers, get second or third opinions, call an advocate.
There was no care coordination at all with this patient, nor was there any shared decision making.
The episode applies standard patient advocacy principles (second opinions, listening to your body, documenting concerns) to a cancer misdiagnosis case. The framing - healthcare as a puzzle where pieces must fit - is a common metaphor. The core message about systemic failures in coordination and empathy is important but not fresh or contrarian; it reflects conventional wisdom in patient safety discourse rather than original analysis or counterintuitive thinking.
I believe our health is like a puzzle and if all the pieces are not fitting, something is wrong.
There was no transparency or accountability.
There are no external guests in this episode. The host, Krista Hughes, is a board-certified patient advocate sharing a case from her practice. While her credential is relevant to patient advocacy, she is not a healthcare system leader, physician, or operator who has designed or improved care delivery at scale. The episode lacks input from clinicians, hospital administrators, or quality improvement experts who could speak to diagnostic processes or systemic reform.
I'm your host, Krista Hughes, the founder and CEO of Hughes Advocacy, in which I am a board certified patient advocate.
I'm not a doctor or a nurse, but as an advocate, part of my passion is helping patients get the medical care they need and deserve.
The episode provides a detailed, specific case narrative with concrete clinical details: patient in 60s, rural location requiring one-hour travel, blood cancer diagnosis, weekly chemo, pneumonia onset at 15 days, hospital discharge, rediscovery via cardiologist X-ray, eventual PET scan and bone marrow biopsy showing no cancer, medication cascades (prednisone causing hyperglycemia, false diabetes diagnosis). These specifics ground the story. However, the episode lacks systemic data (e.g., misdiagnosis rates, frequency of premature discharge, cost of harm) and named institutions or physician types, limiting broader applicability.
After 15 days of taking this oral chemo medication, they got pneumonia and were put in the hospital.
The results revealed in the PET scan there were no lesions, his bone marrow was naked, and the patient never had blood cancer.
This is a monologue by the host, not a conversation. There are no guest voices, follow-up questions, or dynamic dialogue. The host poses rhetorical discussion questions to healthcare leaders at the end (e.g., 'What are some possible reasons why this preventable medical diagnostic error occurred?') but does not engage anyone in response. There is no adversarial push, nuance exploration, or productive disagreement. The episode reads as an advocacy sermon rather than investigative dialogue.
So here are some discussion questions that, in my opinion, healthcare leaders should answer for patients when they're misdiagnosed.
What are some possible reasons why this preventable medical diagnostic error occurred?
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
What to expect in this episode: In this episode, I will discuss being misdiagnosed with cancer and how it was all preventable. And as always, I will answer the question, "What could you do to make your voice matter?" Resources Mentioned in this Episode: Website - YouTube - YouTube Channel Instagram - @hughes.advocacy LinkedIn - Hughes Advocacy Facebook - Hughes Advocacy I hope you enjoyed this episode and will continue returning to a place where your voice always matters! Make sure to answer the poll. I would love it if you could rate, review, share, and
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Welcome to the podcast the patient's voice. Does it matter? This is a place where your voice will always matter to me. Healthcare is complicated, so I wanted to create a space where we will discuss tips, hot topics, provide resources, have, um, guest speakers who are experts in the healthcare industry, a real patient sharing their patient and experience, and hopes to help you navigate any healthcare setting. I want to focus on you, the patient, and discuss issues that matter to you in an open and transparent way. I'm your host, Krista Hughes, the founder and CEO of Hughes Advocacy, in which I am a board certified patient advocate. I have a passion for patience. Let's be the change together. So, welcome back, friends. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about being misdiagnosed. As always, I'm going to start the show with a, uh, what would you do segment. Then we will transition into let's talk about it and finally wrap up the show where I will provide you tips and how to make your voice matter in this situation. So let's get started. I had a client in their 60s reach out to me to assist them with finding new doctors. As they feared their healthcare team was dismissing him. They were also interested in finding doctors that would, uh, explore different chemo options as the medications were too expensive and or were there any clinical trials. The patient had a blood cancer diagnosis. The patient lives in a very rural part of the state and has to drive an hour to get to their doctor's appointments. What would you do when you later found, uh, out you never had cancer? So let's talk about it now. I'm not a doctor or a nurse, but as an advocate, part of my passion is helping patients get the medical care they need and deserve. I believe our health is like a puzzle and if all the pieces are not fitting, something is wrong. So in this particular case, as an advocate, I, uh, completed intake information and probing questions regarding the patient's concerns. So below is what I, as the advocate discovered. So the patient saw a doctor that diagnosed him with blood cancer. They started them on chemo once a week in the doctor's office with a 30 day supply. After 15 days of taking this oral chemo medication, they got pneumonia and were put in the hospital. The hospital discharged them and told them they were fine without any treatment. He told the hospital he was still sick and would not, he did not want to be discharged, but they did it anyway. He went to see his cardiologist who did an X ray, a chest X ray. There it was discovered that the patient had double pneumonia and so was put back into the hospital. The pulmonologist in the hospital did not get involved with the care of this patient for an entire week. Finally, they did a bronchoscopy which resulted that the patient had a bacterial infection. Remember us talking about sepsis in the last episode? They were discharged after two weeks and now sent home with oxygen. They also put him on prednisone. Since being on this prednisone, his sugar was out of whack. And not taking that into consideration, they now decided he was diabetic and put him on insulin. He also had a yeast infection in his mouth as well as a urinary tract infection. He felt poorly and he still thought the pneumonia was not cleared. Even while on prednisone, his normal blood pressure range always runs low. So always know your what your normal blood pressure is. His runs low. However, what they do, they dismissed him and continued to put him on blood pressure medication. They told him that, um, they wanted his systolic rate to stay at 90. They felt that was too low. And so, uh, by doing this, he was extremely dizzy and tired. So I asked, do you think the prednisone might be causing your diabetes, as this patient had never been a diabetic. So after the intake and asking all these questions and listening to the medical history and what all had transpired, I recognized several red flags and encouraged the patient to get second opinions with all new doctors. An oncologist, a pulmonologist, a primary care, and an endocrinologist for the diabetes. The oncologist saw the patient and immediately ordered new labs, a PET scan and a bone marrow biopsy. The results revealed in the PET scan there were no lesions, his bone marrow was naked, and the patient never had blood cancer. Therefore, he never needed chemo. The endocrinologist reported that the patient did not have diabetes and did not need to be on medication or insulin. Also, it revealed the patient did not have pneumonia and did not need to be on prednisone, which was in fact causing his sugar levels to be high. So as a result, the prednisone had to be tapered off and the patient was taken off the diabetic medication. Unfortunately, this medication errors the misdiagnosis. The unnecessary chemo caused this person to have other serious health issues that now needed to be addressed. There was no care coordination at all with this patient, nor was there any shared decision making. So now it's time to talk about tips on how to make your voice matter M in situations like this. First of all, I always tell all My clients listen to your gut. Your gut's always right. You know, doctors might have a PhD and their specialty, but you have a PhD when it comes to your body. You need to push and demand for answers, get second or third opinions, call an advocate. Was there any empathy? Was this client denied care? Were they dismissed? Were they apologized to? You've got to start reporting these instances to the hospital. This is decline of patient safety. And I'm going to talk about that at length in another episode soon. This has got to stop. And all of this was preventable. So here are some discussion questions that, in my opinion, healthcare leaders should answer for patients when they're misdiagnosed. The patient was misdiagnosed with cancer that they did not have. What are some possible reasons why this preventable medical diagnostic error occurred? Next, can you suggest healthcare system process improvements? Can you identify what went well and what went wrong? Uh, for this patient? What could have been done to prevent this from occurring so that it doesn't happen to other patients in the future? What does a patient do if they do not have an advocate to assist them in preventing medical harm? What if a patient, their caregiver, or the advocate do? If they file a complaint and then get lied to, and because they brought up this error and were lied to, there's further harm? How do you make leadership accountable? What if the hospital had listened to this patient's concern and hadn't discharged before the pneumonia was treated? This infuriates me. This is an early discharge. What if the patient's healthcare team actually all got together, coordinated his care, discussed all the treatments, all. All the imaging lab work, medications? What if they had actually listened to this patient? The sad thing is they don't want us to know. There's no transparency or accountability. And I'm going to be discussing accountability and transparency at length in another show. It's something that I'm very passionate about and I think all healthcare systems need to be accountable. So that brings me to the end of this episode. Make sure you check out any resources in the show notes. And as always, thank you for listening to the patient's voice. Does it matter? If you enjoyed the show, make sure you follow Share Rate Review subscribe me on Apple Podcast, Spotify and Google Podcasts. And also reach out to me if you or your loved ones need help navigating the healthcare with any patient advocacy questions or concerns you might have. Be sure to come back next time. I'm not sure what the topic's going to be yet. Uh, there's so much patient safety and harm issues going on right now. And it's all in the news, so it's going to be a surprise. Until then, this is Krista Hughes. And don't forget, I have a passion for patients. So let's be the change together.
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
Medical Gaslighting43 / 100Diagnostic Safety - A Public Health Crisis48 / 100Why Is No-One Accountable In Healthcare?42 / 100Sepsis61 / 100 The Basics Of Healthcare - Part 2, What Is A Diagnostic Error?
