• 3/20/2004
  • SHEILA BURKE
  • The Tennessean

When Melvin Wilson went to the doctor three years ago complaining of neck pain, he told his doctor he was concerned because his family had a history of cancer.

Doctors performed a CT scan and assured him he was fine. But Wilson wasn’t. He died last June at age 63.

A Davidson County Circuit Court jury in Judge Walter Kurtz’s court awarded his widow $1.8 million for Wilson’s wrongful death.

The jury’s award last week will be challenged, defense attorneys said.

His widow, Patricia Wilson, of Gallatin sued radiologist Dr. Gregory Weaver and his company, Radiology Alliance, claiming her husband wouldn’t have died had the cancer been diagnosed earlier.

The doctor’s attorneys fiercely disputed that allegation.

They claimed Wilson still would have had less than a 50% chance of survival.

Melvin Wilson was diagnosed with tongue cancer a year after he had the CT scan.

His widow’s attorney said Melvin Wilson had two cancerous nodes when the CT scan was taken and said that Weaver had misread the results.

There was no indication that the tongue cancer had spread past two nodes on his neck when he was given the CT scan in February 2001, said Daniel Clayton, the widow’s attorney.

Each side had its own set of medical experts.

Two professors at Vanderbilt University Medical Center said the man would have had less than a 50% chance of survival with an earlier diagnosis, Weaver’s attorney, Phillip North, said.

Other expert testimony contended that Wilson probably would have survived if the disease had not reached his chest.