Julie was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995. Had her condition been properly diagnosed from a mammogram two years earlier, her treatment would have been far less excruciating and her prognosis vastly improved. "My mother had been through several biopsies for breast lumps and they were all benign," Julie said. "I thought, 'No problem, it's not going to be cancerous.' But they called the next afternoon and said that it was indeed cancer."

Julie underwent surgery to remove a section of her breast and lymph nodes a month after her diagnosis. Of the 22 lymph nodes her surgeon removed, 21 contained cancer cells. Julie's breast cancer was far more advanced than first thought. "I went into a state of disbelief," Julie said. "I thought I could handle surgery and the radiation, but all of a sudden I was told the cancer wasn't contained and might have spread throughout my body."

Meanwhile, when Julie's husband, Ted, transported her medical records from one physician's office to another, he found an old report from Julie's previous mammogram in October 1992. A note on the report stated that calcifications in Julie's right breast had increased since 1988 and recommended she have another mammogram in a year. But Julie had been told in 1992 that her mammogram was normal, and so she did not return to the imaging center until 1995 for another routine screening.

Soon after her surgery, Julie learned that the 1992 mammogram revealed not only calcifications, but evidence of cancer not diagnosed at the time. Left untreated for more than two years, the cancer had spread.

"Ted was absolutely furious, I crawled into my bed and slept for a week," Julie said. "If somebody had told me there was anything wrong on the 1992 mammogram, I would have been very prudent about seeking further treatment."

Julie's surgeon encouraged her to sue the imaging center and the radiologist who had misdiagnosed her condition. But first, Julie decided to put her energy into finding the best follow-up treatment she could. Julie and Ted interviewed several oncologists before selecting a cutting-edge chemotherapy program at the University of Washington. There, Julie underwent six months of weekly chemotherapy and a mastectomy.

"I was reading statistics about a 25 percent survival rate over five years for people in my situation, compared to a 95 percent survival rate had the cancer been diagnosed when it should have been," she said. "That's a huge difference."

Julie was reluctant to take legal action for her misdiagnosed condition, but she had a good friend and neighbor who was a plaintiff attorney -- Nic Corning -- so she told him her story. "Julie was concerned that people would consider her case to be frivolous, but it deserved to be heard," Corning said. "This is a classic example of how the backers of so-called tort reform have eroded the public's trust in the civil justice system with false and misleading information." Corning took her case and associated with another attorney experienced in breast cancer malpractice suits.

Pretrial discovery disclosed that the radiologist who had misinterpreted Julie's 1992 films had completed only one outdated mammography course in the mid 1970s. The imaging center's own promotional literature claimed that its radiologists specialized in breast diagnosis, but Julie's radiologist admitted that only one-third of his practice involved mammography.

Julie's case was settled in August of 1997. Julie was proud to have held the responsible health care providers accountable for the harm they caused and the settlement enabled her to acquire some comfort and helped provide for her family, but this brave and courageous woman passed away from breast cancer in December 2000. Julie leaves behind her husband Ted and her children Chris and Beth.

Profile by Susan Woodward; photo by Brian DalBalcon, A Cause of Action, Washington Families Search for Justice; 1997; Washington State Trial Lawyers Association.