Misdiagnosis is a common form of medical error. In fact, nearly 20 percent of patients say they have been misdiagnosed at some point in their lives. Misdiagnosis can take a variety of forms, including misinterpreted lab results, a doctor’s failure to prescribe the correct treatment, a doctor treating a patient for the wrong disease, and more.
If you think you’ve been the victim of a misdiagnosis, it’s important to speak to a Medical liability attorney in New York City as soon as possible. There are time limits for filing a claim, so don’t hesitate to speak to an experienced attorney.
Doctors have a duty to diagnose
Every time a patient sees a doctor, the doctor has a legal obligation to adhere to generally accepted medical standards and procedures. This means that physicians should follow generally accepted procedures and protocols in relation to identifying a disease, screening for the disease, and diagnosing it.
To do this, doctors typically go through a multi-step process that includes talking to the patient about their family history, their own medical history, and their symptoms. Doctors will also perform a physical sample and order any diagnostic tests that can help identify the disease.
Missing any of these steps can lead to a misdiagnosis. For example, if a doctor doesn’t ask about a patient’s family history, they may be missing something important in the patient’s genetics, causing the doctor to miss a potential disease. If a doctor doesn’t order certain tests, they may misdiagnose the disease as something else.
In some cases, doctors misdiagnose a patient because they make assumptions about the types of medical conditions a patient might have based on the person’s gender or age. For example, the patient might have symptoms indicative of a type of cancer that usually only occurs in elderly patients, but the doctor might dismiss those symptoms if the patient…
