Misdiagnosis as a Form of Medical Malpractice
If a medical professional fails to make an accurate or timely diagnosis, a patient could experience some very serious complications. Most often, a patient will not receive any treatment or in other cases a patient might receive treatment for a condition that they do not even have. In many types of misdiagnosis cases, a patient has a strong basis on which to build a medical malpractice case. Not all diagnostic errors, however, are the basis for a lawsuit because there are some medical conditions that even reasonably skilled physicians or specialists are not able to diagnose. Instead, the misdiagnosis in question must have been the result of a medical professional’s negligent actions. In these situations, an experienced medical malpractice attorney like attorney Randolph Rice knows how to make sure that parties are held responsible for the various damages that can arise.
What Constitutes Medical Misdiagnosis
Misdiagnosis can arise in numerous situations. The most common way in which misdiagnosis tends to occur involves delayed diagnosis and mismanagement of diagnostic testing. Some of the most common examples of medical misdiagnosis include:
- Failing to order an appropriate test for a patient’s disease or illness
- Failing to properly communicate and listen to a patient describe symptoms
- Failing to properly investigate causes of a patient’s symptoms
- Failing to refer a patient to a specialist
- Failing to screen a patient for a particular medical condition
Establishing the Grounds for a Medical Malpractice Lawsuit
Not all errors involving misdiagnosis are medical malpractice. There are still some diseases and medical conditions that are too difficult to reliably diagnose all of the time. To establish a medical malpractice when misdiagnosis is involved, a person must show three things:
- Doctor Patient Relationship. To establish a medical malpractice lawsuit, it must be shown that a patient had a relationship with their medical provider. This relationship just means that a person saw a medical professional, who agreed to diagnose and treat the person.
- Negligence by the Medical Professional. Even highly skilled medical professionals can make diagnostic errors when practicing medicine. To show that negligence occurred, it must be demonstrated that a medical provider acted carelessly or outside the standards of care accepted by the medical community. In many cases, when making an assessment of a patient’s condition, medical professionals diagnose a person’s condition by considering all possible conditions and ruling out each possibility. When deciding if negligence occurred, a skilled medical malpractice attorney will determine how a reasonably skilled medical provider would have responded in the same situation. If other medical providers would have made an accurate diagnosis, medical malpractice is likely.
- Establishing Harm. After proving that a medical professional negligently diagnosed a patient, it is important to prove that a patient suffered harm as a result. A patient must establish that if they had received the appropriate diagnosis, they would not have been injured. Many times, the harm incurred by misdiagnosis is that a person ends up experiencing a much more advanced medical condition than they otherwise would have, which sometimes means that a person sometimes must undergo medical procedures that they would not have had to face.
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