“What the hell is going on here?” Dr. Randy Sasich whispered as he reviewed the file of an ICU patient in a Helena, Montana, hospital. Sasich’s review set off a chain of events that would ultimately divide a city and raise questions about a beloved oncologist involved in a string of patient deaths.
The patient in the intensive care unit, Scot Warwick, had been diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer 11 years earlier. He’d undergone years of chemotherapy and experimental therapy. Sasich was shocked to see that Warwick had been diagnosed with cancer in 2009 even though his oncologist, Dr. Thomas C. Weiner, had not ordered a confirming biopsy until 2020. The results of that biopsy? No cancer.
Yet Weiner prescribed another round of chemo for Warwick. In interviews with ProPublica’s J. David McSwane, Weiner maintained that Warwick had Stage 4 lung cancer for 11 years and that the cancer was missed on the biopsy. Weiner denies that he harmed or misdiagnosed patients, and he maintains that his treatments were appropriate.
A spokesperson for the hospital emailed a statement that broadly declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation. “We believe this situation is isolated to a single, former physician, and we remain confident in the exceptional care provided by St. Peter’s medical staff,” it said.
Sasich pondered how to tell Warwick that everything he believed about himself for more than a decade was false. Revisit our investigation, which was published in December 2024.
