Failure to Diagnose Can Cost Patients Their Lives

In the past, we have routinely discussed medical malpractice involving a medical professional’s negligent treatment of a patient’s known disease or condition.  But this is not the only situation in which hospitals and doctors provide negligent medical care to medical malpractice victims.  As Ohio medical malpractice lawyers, we routinely represent clients who have suffered due to another shockingly frequent type of medical malpractice: failure to diagnose and/or misdiagnosis.

If you are like most people, you can probably recall a time when it felt like your or a loved one’s doctor was not giving you his full attention.  As patients, we take great care to tell our doctors all of our pains and symptoms so that they can properly diagnose us, and yet these doctors are often too preoccupied to give our cases the attention they deserve.  Unfortunately, this inattention to patients and details can lead to serious health problems and even death.

When a patient seeks medical care, he or she has the right to competent treatment.  This includes a right to expect medical professionals to exercise due care in diagnosing your personal injuries, conditions and diseases.  Too often, busy and careless doctors fail to diagnose deadly conditions such as cancer, heart conditions, or brain diseases.  The failure to diagnose such serious conditions can cause delays in treatment that lead to long-term health problems or death, either of which may have been avoided had a proper, timely diagnosis been made.

Misdiagnosis can be equally as dangerous.  In cases of misdiagnosis, a treating physician may put a patient on a course of treatment that includes medications and surgeries which are unnecessary or, in some cases, actually exacerbate the effects of the patient’s disease.

If you or a loved one has suffered as the result of failure to diagnose medical malpractice or misdiagnosis medical malpractice, contact us today for a free telephone consultation.  With the experience and resources to help medical malpractice victims, Lowe Scott Fisher Co., LPA represents clients in Cleveland, Ohio and across the nation.