I was told via E-MAIL that I had cancer. Cruel doctors didn’t have the decency to call me first

A woman has revealed how she found out she had lung cancer via an email link from her doctor, as she urged doctors to treat patients with more dignity.

Jamie Sweeney, 64, said her eyes welled with tears when she received the panic attack-inducing news via a message on her iPad while at home in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The link took her to a page on MyChart, an online system for accessing medical records, that revealed the results of tests on small nodules in her lungs days earlier.

“Terrified,” is how she described it to local news reporters, “someone should have called me.” Gesturing to her disabled husband, she added, “What’s happening to him? Who is going to take care of him?’.

Ms. Sweeney is one of a growing number of Americans who receive devastating diagnoses before speaking to a doctor.

She is now worried about who will care for her husband, top left in the photo, who is disabled after an accident at work.

A spokesperson for MyChart said patients can turn off notifications, but there are concerns that results could still be uploaded to online portals because hospitals are required to immediately share medical information, including cancer diagnoses, with patients.

Mrs Sweeney revealed it Room 12 that she was diagnosed after clicking on an email from MyChart that showed her test results.

It immediately stated that she had a “growing adenocarcinoma” – or cancer – and needed a “multidisciplinary thoracic tumor board” – or team of doctors to create her treatment plan.

Mrs Sweeney, who had lived with benign spots on her lungs for years, said: ‘What did that mean to me? It definitely meant I have cancer.”

She is among two-thirds of Americans who use MyChart to access their medical records, who have been repeatedly criticized for sharing troubling diagnoses before doctors have managed to contact patients.

A woman wrote on Reddit six days ago: “I checked my online account (MyChart) today and the results were there. I had papillary carcinoma (thyroid cancer). I haven’t even gotten a call from my doctor yet.’

A second said: ‘I found out the same way. I got an email saying MyChart had been updated, so I checked.

“An hour later, a nurse called me because my doctor was away and unavailable, and she was worried I might have seen it.”

She received the email from MyChart, pictured above. MyChart said patients can turn off notifications to avoid receiving disturbing news

And a third said, “I heard about my (inconclusive but still concerning) biopsy results on MyChart and had a mild panic attack at work before I could get my (doctor) on the phone.”

A spokesperson for Wisconsin-based Epic, which owns MyChart, said patients and hospitals can set the system to stop sending notifications.

“Each organization decides how to configure the released results based on their specific needs,” they said.

“With MyChart, patients can choose whether they want to see their results automatically or wait for their care team to review them.”

UC Health outside Cincinnati, where Ms. Sweeney was treated, did not comment on the release of the results. DailyMail.com has also contacted them for comment.

The bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which took effect in 2021, requires hospitals to quickly share medical information with patients.

Three quarters of doctors, especially those who treat cancer patients, do not support the measure – say it causes fear among patients and raises complaints about the way care is provided.

But campaigners say the law was necessary to ensure medical systems did not act as ‘gatekeepers’ to patients’ information.

Caitlin Donovan, a healthcare policy expert at the National Patient Advocate Foundation, said: ‘Unfortunately, this means some patients are opening these messages and receiving dire reports without a doctor interpreting it for them first.

“I will say that for a long time patients have been frustrated because they felt like the entire medical industry was acting as gatekeepers to their own information.

‘Now this law is turning the other way, so there is almost no filter anymore.’

Data shows that approximately two million Americans in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer each year.