Medical malpractice and misdiagnosis

Medical malpractice affects many New York residents every year, and a common type is a misdiagnosis. A failure to diagnose a disease can lead to harm for the patient if treatment is delayed after a medical provider failed to correctly identify the patient's condition. Another type of misdiagnosis occurs when a doctor tells patients that they have a condition that in fact they do not have, which can result in unnecessary invasive procedures.

In one Missouri case, a man went to his doctor after elevated blood proteins level indicated the possibility of prostate cancer. The man elected to have a biopsy conducted to rule out the possibility of cancer as soon as possible. His urologist contacted him about month later on his first day at a new job to report that the results of the biopsy showed that the man had an aggressive form of prostate cancer and that he would need surgery to remove his prostate gland and surrounding lymph nodes to prevent the cancer from spreading.

After the pathology results came back from the lab following the surgery, the man learned that he never actually had prostate cancer. The cancer diagnosis was caused by a mix-up of the man's biopsy results with those of another patient.

Patients who have experienced a misdiagnosis may wish to consult an attorney. A failure to diagnose cancer can have a devastating impact on the patient because cancer is much more treatable when it is caught at an early stage than when it is not found until it spread to many areas of the body. An attorney can use the opinion testimony of expert medical witnesses to demonstrate that the negligent physician should bear financial responsibility for the patient's losses.