There are numerous stages in the health care process when a medical professional should diagnose your condition correctly. If you are presenting at the emergency room with symptoms of a health problem, it is crucial that the attending physician can promptly diagnose the problem. The same thing goes when you see your treating physician at a scheduled appointment complaining about a certain health issue or when you visit a specialist to seek treatment for the problem. Depending on your health condition, hours and days can matter.
If you or a loved one has suffered due to a misdiagnosis, contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney to assess your damages and fight for full compensation.
Misdiagnosis Affects Hundreds of Thousands of Americans Each Year
A recent study from Johns Hopkins quantifies the overall effect of misdiagnosis on Americans. According to the study, 795,000 people each year will die or become permanently disabled due to a diagnostic error. Many of the diagnostic errors are concentrated among a handful of major diseases and health problems, including:
- Cancer
- Infections
- Vascular events
The Consequences of a Misdiagnosis
Timely diagnosis can help the doctor embark on a course of treatment that either improves your condition or helps you avoid the worst-case scenario. The doctor can then prescribe medication, perform surgery, or begin the necessary treatment. Most illnesses worsen over time if they are not properly diagnosed and treated. Treatment might become more costly and invasive as a condition worsens, making a full recovery less feasible.
For example, a tumor can metastasize and spread to other parts of the body if cancer is not properly diagnosed in time. When someone might have needed a simple lumpectomy with a timely diagnosis, they might need significantly more major surgery plus chemotherapy and radiation if they were initially misdiagnosed. Another example is an infection that spreads and becomes resistant to antibiotics when it is not caught by a doctor when a patient first presents symptoms.
How a Doctor Can Exercise Reasonable Care
There are numerous things that a doctor can do to diagnose your condition when they are using the reasonable care expected of them under the circumstances. A medical professional can do the following:
- Listen to you and the symptoms that you are reporting
- Consider your medical history when determining how to respond to your symptoms
- Order the appropriate tests that can diagnose your medical condition
- Properly read the results of those tests
- Considering different potential diagnoses and not just sticking to one potential explanation for your symptoms
- Consulting with or sending you to a specialist when necessary
- Remaining up-to-date and current in their medical knowledge, so they are aware of recent health trends
A doctor is not the only one who can commit medical malpractice in a misdiagnosis case. They may have sent you for the right lab tests, but the laboratory might have administered a test improperly or misread your test results.
Misdiagnosis does not just encompass situations in which the doctor delayed detecting your condition. They might also give an incorrect diagnosis that costs you valuable treatment time. Moreover, the doctor may not have given any diagnosis whatsoever in the face of symptoms that should have been potentially obvious.
You Need to Prove That a Misdiagnosis Was Medical Negligence
Not every case of misdiagnosis is automatic grounds for a successful malpractice lawsuit. The doctor is held to the medical standard of care, and malpractice happens only when their mistake falls below this standard. Not every mistake does.
Further, some illnesses are inherently hard to detect, either because they are extremely rare or they present symptoms that may be very similar to other conditions. For example, mesothelioma is not always detected early because it is a very rare condition, and its symptoms are not always clear at first. Doctors often do not catch the disease until it has reached the later stages, which does not necessarily mean they have done something wrong.
Whether misdiagnosis is medical malpractice depends on the facts and circumstances of your situation. Your medical malpractice attorney can work with expert witnesses who will give their opinion of what the doctor should have done under the circumstances. Armed with your medical records containing the symptoms you were reporting, they will recreate what the doctor should have done if they were exercising due care. In some cases, the prudent doctor should have erred on the side of caution and ordered tests or not dismissed certain concerns that you expressed out of hand.
Challenges You May Face in a Misdiagnosis Case
Proving causation is one of the challenges you will face in a medical malpractice case for misdiagnosis. You need to demonstrate that the doctor’s negligence was the legal and proximate cause of your injury, which might be a worsened condition. The defendant can argue that your condition would have been the same regardless of when they diagnosed the medical condition. You need to present expert testimony that shows your condition would not have been as bad had the doctor diagnosed your illness in time.
The doctor may also argue that they acted reasonably in trying to diagnose your condition and missing the actual nature of your health problem was not their fault. They may claim that they did everything in their power to provide you with medical treatment that was reasonable under the circumstances.
How a Medical Malpractice Attorney Can Help Your Case
When you hire a medical malpractice lawyer for your case, they can gather facts that show that the doctor was negligent. Your medical malpractice attorney can recreate the care you received, taking a jury back to the examining room or hospital to show what the doctor should have done and why their conduct was negligent.
Your medical malpractice lawyer will also quantify your damages and work for you to receive full compensation for the harm you suffered. An attorney can either negotiate a settlement that fairly pays you (which is the most likely outcome of your case), or they may take your lawsuit all the way to a trial in front of a jury if necessary. You need to contact a McLean personal injury lawyer as soon as possible to discuss your case.