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Fake Mammogram Results – Tech Gets Jail Time For Altering Records Of 1,289 Patients

By Dawn Papple
Published on: 10:58 PST, Apr 18, 2014

A former Georgia hospital technician who was doctoring up fake mammogram results has been sentenced to up to six months in a detention center. Rachael Rapraeger, 33, pleaded guilty of altering the mammogram records of 1,289 patients. Ten of those patients were given fake negative results and two of those given the false negative mammogram results are now dead, according to a CNN reporter. Rapraeger worked at Perry Hospital as a technician when she told the patients their mammograms were negative for breast cancer when a doctor had never actually reviewed the mammogram scans.

Houston County Superior Judge Katherine Lumsden issued only six months in a detention center, but told the woman, “You played Russian roulette with the lives of essentially a thousand women in this community.”

Sharon Holmes was given fake results in 2009 when she was told her mammogram results showed no breast cancer. Two months later she discovered the breast cancer she thought she didn’t have spread to her lymph nodes. Thankfully, Holmes cancer is in remission, but she is still angry that Rachael presented her with false mammogram results. Holmes gave WMAZ a message for the woman who faked her negative mammogram results, “I’m not a name on a piece of paper; I’m a person.” In court she told the woman, “You could have made a different decision, and my family and I would not be living this nightmare.” Judge Lumsden also issued Rapraeger ten years of probation and a $12,500 fine on top of the six months in prison. In addition, she will not be able to work in the health industry for the duration of her probation. The sentencing was part of a plea deal. She pleaded guilty to ten counts of misdemeanor reckless conduct and one count of felony computer forgery. Rapraeger’s defense for handing out the fake results was that she claimed she was overburdened with her workload and wanted to please her bosses. Many, including Holmes, are not pleased with the leniency of her sentence. “If I’m living a sentence of having cancer then you should live a sentence also: behind bars,” Holmes said. Miriam Mizell, another victim of the bogus mammogram results, couldn’t give her opinion of the sentencing because she died of breast cancer two years ago. Mizell was told her mammogram was all clear, two years later after she was randomly selected to receive a complementary mammogram, she discovered she had breast cancer.

Houston Healthcare runs Perry Hospital. Houston Healthcare’s CEO, Cary Martin, told WMAZ, “Notification efforts to the impacted patients commenced April 2010 and continued to completion or resource exhaustion in the ensuing months,” Martin said. The fake mammogram results were for radiology patients at Perry Hospital from Jan. 22, 2009, to April 1, 2010, according to the telegraph. Civil suits, which name the tech and Houston Healthcare System, have also been filed.

What would you do if you found out you were given fake mammogram results simply because a technician felt overworked and wanted to please her boss?

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