Negligently Completed Diagnostic Tests

Early diagnosis and early treatment for every illness and or disease is the surest way to achieve a full recovery. Sure, sometimes even early diagnosis does not lead to the outcome desired, but nonetheless, it gives a better opportunity for such.

The experienced Kingston medical malpractice attorney knows that many factors lead to early diagnosis of illnesses and diseases. Patients must first care enough about their own health to see a doctor regularly for routine physicals. Patients must also see doctors quickly when feeling ill or under the weather.

Let us say we have a twenty-five year old patient that is physically fit, eats right, and sees his doctor regularly. He has had some difficulty breathing and some minor chest pain lately, so he brings such to the doctor’s attention. The doctor does the general exam with a blood pressure check. He asks the patient about work, family, and other possible stressors. The diagnosis is anxiety. The doctor asks the young man to keep a journal of how he feels at different points in the day and what he is doing when he feels discomfort.

Two weeks later, the patient is in the hospital after having suffered a minor heart attack. He has high cholesterol; in fact, it is familial hypercholesterolemia.

His general practitioner is shocked. The patient is so young and in great shape, he never thought to run cholesterol tests on the patient. He is even more shocked when he reviewed his office records for the patient; those records clearly indicate that both of the patient’s parents have hereditary high cholesterol and that his grandparents suffered fatal heart attacks. The doctor knows right then that he should have ordered a cholesterol test; in fact, any other doctor would have done such in this situation and the doctor knows it.

The event that happened above is referred to as a wrong diagnosis or misdiagnosis. One illness is mistaken for being a different kind of illness. As you can imagine, serious injury and even death can result.

When diagnostic testing is negligently completed, it often leads to misdiagnoses. The result can also be a completely missed diagnosis. This occurs when a person is sick but the doctor says everything is ok. Physicians have also been known to untimely diagnosis patients. In fact, delayed diagnosis is very common. Patients that which receive delayed treatment have a lesser likelihood of surviving heart disease and cancer, for example.

Other diagnostic errors can lead to failing to diagnose unrelated diseases, related diseases, and failures to recognize complications.

All of these types of negligent errors can amount to medical malpractice and victims can receive compensation for their injuries.

But what do you think? I would love to hear from you! Leave a comment or I also welcome your phone call on my toll-free cell at 1-866-889-6882 or you can drop me an e-mail at jfisher@fishermalpracticelaw.com. You are always welcome to request my FREE book, The Seven Deadly Mistakes of Malpractice Victims, at the home page of my website at www.protectingpatientrights.com.