Some medical conditions are urgent in nature and require an accurate and prompt diagnosis. Some of these conditions include heart attacks and strokes, which necessitate immediate treatment. Other conditions, such as cancer need rapid treatment as well, to attempt to prevent the spread of the disease.
Some doctors fail to make the proper diagnosis. This can occur in several different ways. The doctor might not diagnose the patient with any issue when something problematic is, in fact, present. Other times, the doctor might make an incorrect diagnosis. The doctor might also diagnose a condition when there isn’t anything wrong. All of these can have a negative impact on the patient.
Failure to diagnose
Failure to diagnose occurs when the doctor doesn’t make any diagnosis at all. This could allow a very serious condition to worsen to the point that it can’t be treated or that the necessary treatment would be very hard on the patient.
An example of this would be if leukemia was present in a patient but the doctor didn’t diagnose the condition. This would leave the leukemia time to spread. If left to spread long enough, it might not be treatable and would be considered terminal.
Misdiagnosis
A misdiagnosis means that that doctor diagnosed the wrong condition. For example, a diagnosis of angina when the patient actually had a heart attack would be a misdiagnosis. This could mean that the patient gets ineffective treatment, which could result in a worsening of the condition.
Another example of a misdiagnosis occurs when a doctor diagnoses a condition that isn’t actually present. This could mean that a patient undergoes treatments that they don’t actually need. For example, a patient who is improperly diagnosed with cancer might receive harmful radiation or chemotherapy that he or she didn’t actually need. This might end up causing health problems that the patient wouldn’t have had to deal with if they didn’t endure the unnecessary treatments.
In all of these cases, the patient can suffer health consequences related to the issue. The person may not be able to work and will have to endure difficult medical treatments. These are some of the reasons why people who have to live with these diagnosis errors might choose to seek compensation for the issues they are facing and the damages that they cause.
