Hospital Technician Faked Over 1,200 Breast Cancer Mammograms

A woman in Perry, Georgia took laziness to a whole new level, one that threatened the lives of her hospital clients who should’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer. Instead, they were sent home “cancer free” until receiving sobering and life-changing calls.

Rachael Rapraeger, a radiology technician, says she began falsifying mammogram test results because she had too much work to do. She’d stopped caring at work, according to the AP, and there’s less paperwork to file if a patient shows no signs of cancer. So when no one was looking, she’d hop on the computer, impersonate a radiologist and declare patients clear of tumors or abnormal masses when a doctor hadn’t even seen their mammogram results.

However, in 2010, when one woman who Rapraeger had diagnosed as cancer free found she had a negative mammogram during a screening at another hospital, things began to fall apart. Hospital management at Rapraeger’s job began to look into the technician’s work history and realized that many of the days a physician had supposedly signed off on mammogram results, the radiologist hadn’t actually been in the office.

Earlier this month, Rapraeger was sentenced to serve six months in a detention center in addition to 10 years probation stipulating that she stay away from health care work and must pay at $12,500 fine.

But some of the women who could’ve been killed by her negligence don’t feel the punishment fits the crime. Because of Rapraeger’s actions, Sara Bailey’s cancer was so far along that doctors had to remove her whole breast and she blames Rapraeger — and the judge who she feels was much too lenient.

“I’m not hurting and I don’t think I have cancer, but I’m not a woman anymore,” the 80-year-old said, her eyes welling with tears and her voice catching as she talked about the loss of her breast.