Medical Malpractice and Failure to Diagnose

When the term medical malpractice is used, doctors making surgical mistakes or accidentally physically hurting their patients is usually what comes to mind. The large number of outspoken individuals who do not trust doctors fear that a physician will harm them and that they cannot be trusted. But the majority of medical malpractice cases have nothing to do with a doctor physically harming a patient or even prescribing a drug that harms them. Instead, most cases involve misdiagnoses, diagnostic error or delayed diagnosis.

The Types of Diagnostic Errors

There are a number of ways in which a doctor may fail to treat you correctly as a patient. They are responsible for much more than just treating you, they are also legally responsible for catching certain illnesses and diagnosing them correctly. The types of diagnostic errors a physician can be sued for include:

• Failure to diagnose-a doctor is responsible in many cases for catching early signs of certain cancers, diseases or disorders. If a doctor, for example, treats a patient for a throat issue and fails to pick up on the obvious warning signs for throat cancer and have the patient screened for cancer, he or she can be held legally liable for the further injury or death that may result.

• Delayed diagnosis-a diagnosis for deadly diseases and conditions must be made promptly when the physical signs are present. If a doctor has a patient who complains of dizziness, coordination or visual hallucinations who he or she fails to screen for brain cancer until the cancer has developed to a debilitating point, the doctor can be sued.

• Misdiagnosis-it is also the responsibility of a doctor to make the correct diagnosis. It is common for doctors to make the wrong diagnosis in difficult cases, but the doctor should continue to take all possible routes towards finding the correct diagnosis. If a doctor did not bother to send the patient through the proper testing to ensure that his or her diagnosis was appropriate, this inaction can be seen as gross negligence.

Laymen rely on the expert knowledge of trained, professional doctors to help them understand what is going on in their bodies. It is the duty of doctors to provide this service to their patients to the very best of their ability.

For more information regarding medical malpractice and diagnostic errors, visit the website of the personal injury attorneys of Webb, Wade, Taylor & Thompson, LLC.

Joseph Devine