Brennan Burtker LLC congratulates Partner Rachel Stern and Associate Mac Cepican on securing a defense verdict on November 5, 2025. Plaintiff, age 59, alleged that the defendant internal medicine physician and internal medicine group negligently failed to communicate a referral to urology to him regarding an elevated PSA, which resulted in a delay in the diagnosis of his prostate cancer. The defense maintained that a referral to urology was not required and was above and beyond what was required by the standard of care. The defense further argued that it was unknown whether the plaintiff had prostate cancer at the time the referral to urology was made and further contended that the plaintiff’s treatment course and ultimate outcome would have been exactly the same, even if his prostate cancer had been diagnosed earlier, due to the highly aggressive nature of the cancer itself.