Alisa Horn says she discovered she had MS moments before stepping in front of an audience.
A cellist for Broadway’s “An American in Paris” claims a doctor woefully ignored her MRI results for months, forcing her to independently uncover her multiple sclerosis diagnosis and suffer a panic attack during a live show.
Alisa Horn says she hunted down the MRI and made the shocking discovery moments before stepping in front of an audience for the award-winning production she performed on for a year.
She experienced “utter horror and grief,” and was “stricken with anxiety,” a lawsuit filed by Horn in Manhattan this week states.
“I opened the envelope with the results which read ‘abnormal,’ and the first thought that came into my head was about my idol, Jacqueline du Pre, one of the great cellists, and that she had MS and could never play again and died in her 40s,” Horn told the Daily News Thursday.
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The musician, 35, is asking for more than $1 million in real and punitive damages in her complaint filed against Dr. Sait Ashina and Mt. Sinai Health System.
The malpractice lawsuit says their alleged negligence needlessly delayed critical care, exacerbated her condition and wreaked havoc on her career.
She alleges she first sought treatment from Dr. Ashina in Sept. 2015 due to severe migraines. The doctor prescribed medication and sent her for an MRI that took place a few weeks later on Oct. 21, the lawsuit claims.
At a follow-up appointment on Nov. 13, the doctor said he had not yet reviewed the results but assured her “they were fine” and he would call soon, she alleges.
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She claims subsequent calls went nowhere and she eventually learned Dr. Ashina had moved his practice from Mount Sinai Beth Israel to NYU Langone Hospital.
Horn says Mount Sinai staff told her they had no record of her MRI and she should call Dr. Ashina at his new hospital. The new office said they also had no record and she should contact the radiologist, the lawsuit states.
“After being misled, and sent in circles for months,” Horn finally retrieved the results herself and read them shortly before her March 2,2016, performance, the paperwork claims.
“It was extremely frustrating. I was having unexplained symptoms and I was anxious to see the actual report which I could not obtain,” Horn told The News.
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When she learned her scan showed signs of MS, she had the panic attack that caused her conductor and fellow musicians to speculate she suffered “stage fright” and couldn’t perform at a Broadway caliber, her lawsuit alleges.
Horn visited another doctor the next day and received a “frantic and panicked” call from Dr. Ashina after nine o’clock that night.
Follow-up testing confirmed she had MS and that she had developed seven new lesions on her brain in the five months since the first MRI, the lawsuit states.
Horn quickly began treatment with an injectable medicine called Plegridy, and a subsequent MRI in August 2016 detected only one new lesion, while another in March 2017 showed no new lesions, according to the lawsuit.
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But the nightmare caused her to take a leave of absence and eventually lose her job and health benefits, the lawsuit states. Horn used to make at leat $90,000 a year with her Broadway work, according to the suit.
She’s now feeling “fully ready and able to perform at the same skill level,” but her jobs have been “sporadic” and she is unable to support herself, according to the complaint.
A spokeswoman for Mt. Sinai said the hospital was looking into the matter.
Dr. Ashina did not return a call left at his new office.
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“Ms. Horn is an extremely talented cellist and well-natured individual. The lack of diligence on the part of Dr. Ashina in this matter is abhorrent and should not be endured by anyone,” her lawyer Kevin Landau said in a statement to The News.
“We hope Ms. Horn’s struggles may effect swift and sustainable change within the Mount Sinai medical center where the physician was employed during the material events described.”
