New York Doctor Negligence Lawyer: Expert Legal Representation

What If the Misdiagnosis Harmed the Patient?

You will also need to prove that the delayed diagnosis or misdiagnosis caused your injury or condition to progress beyond where it would have, had the right diagnosis been made and been made timeously. You will also have to show that this progression had an adverse impact on your treatment.

For instance, a delayed cancer diagnosis meant you had to undergo a strict treatment regime like chemotherapy, or perhaps a patient died because the cancer was too far progressed to respond to treatment.

In some cases, a patient will be able to show harm even if his or her condition is still treatable.

Should a doctor diagnose a patient with an illness or condition that the patient doesn’t actually have, that patient may be able to prove harm in the form of medical issues, stress, anxiety, and related expenses for unnecessary treatment.

There Are Different Types of Medical Diagnostic Errors

There are a number of ways that doctors can make mistakes. These include:

• Missed diagnosis – the physician gives you a clean bill of health when you actually do have a disease or illness
• The wrong diagnosis – this is also known as misdiagnosis and occurs then the doctor chooses the wrong illness. For instance, he or she could diagnose a gastric issue when the patient is actually having a heart attack.
• Failure to diagnose a related disease – in this case, the physician correctly diagnoses a disease, but then fails to diagnose a similar illness. The related disease tends to go hand-in-hand with the main condition or is one that has a higher risk of occurring in patients with a primary illness or disease.
• Failure to recognize complications – here, the doctor does make the right However, he or she fails to identify factors or complications that aggravate the condition.
• Delayed diagnosis – the physician does make the correct diagnosis but only after some time has passed. This is one of the most common kinds of diagnosis errors.
• Failure to diagnose separate diseases – a patient is correctly diagnosed with one disease; however, the doctor fails to diagnose a different secondary disease.

Misdiagnosis and Negligence Can Happen in the Emergency Room

Believe it or not, misdiagnosis is far more likely in the emergency room. That’s because the increased time pressure in the emergency environment means there is less time to investigate differential diagnoses thoroughly. What’s more, the traumatic and grave nature of emergency room injuries and illnesses means that incorrect, or missed diagnosis is far more likely to harm the patient.

Unfortunately, in this type of setting, less common conditions and illnesses often escape the correct diagnosis. What’s more, conditions that are not common in certain populations aren’t likely to be correctly diagnosed.

For instance, a young woman with gastric problems, which is actually a sign of a heart attack, is a lot less likely to be diagnosed as having a heart attack, compared to a middle-aged, overweight male with the exact same symptoms.

Conditions that are frequently misdiagnosed in an emergency room setting include:

Contact Us Today for a Free Consultation

If you, or a loved one, have suffered at the hands of a doctor’s negligence in New York, our lawyers are waiting to help you. We serve the Queens, Manhattan, NYC Metro, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Bronx areas.

We provide dedicated representation for victims of personal injury cases, from car and construction accidents to serious injuries, wrongful death, and beyond.