Failing To Diagnose: When An Omission Is Negligence

When most people think of medical malpractice they think of surgical errors and medical procedures what have gone wrong with serious consequences to the victim.  This is not surprising since nearly 100,000 deaths every year are attributed to medical errors.  Additionally, the cases people hear about most often involve surgeons operating on the wrong body part, or the victim is left injured after a mistake during an operation.  However, there are many forms of medical malpractice including when a doctor or medical professional has simply failed to diagnose a patient’s disease, injury, or illness properly.

The failure to diagnose illnesses and injuries is a serious problem in the United States healthcare system.  The victims of this problem are helpless patients.  Serious consequences can result from the failure to diagnose a serious health condition properly.  The condition could become worse with permanent physical or mental impairment or even death being the result.

Failure to diagnose can result from a doctor’s failure to run appropriate tests and checks.  This may result in the missed opportunity to adequately screen for health problems or they may order the wrong test be run.  Additionally, the proper tests may be run but the results of those tests may be incorrectly interpreted or missed entirely.

In all of the above scenarios, the victim is now at risk of their condition worsening.  Even if the doctor later properly diagnoses the condition, the damage could already be done and the delayed diagnosis could be too late to help the patient.

A person who is suffering from a serious injury or illness wants to know that they have received adequate health care than that this health care will continue.  If you suspect that you have been the victim of a physician’s failure to diagnose or another form of medical malpractice, contact an experienced Kingston, New York medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible to evaluate your case.

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.