Misdiagnosis is the Most Frequent Medical Error

According to the findings, diagnostic errors occur across all areas of medicine; however, three medical conditions were identified as being responsible for three-quarters of all “serious harm” cases related to misdiagnosis. Researchers have now dubbed these conditions the “big three:”

• Infections – especially sepsis
• Cancers – especially lung cancer
• Vascular events – especially stroke

Most of these errors occurred during an emergency situation or outpatient setting, and cancers were the most commonly misdiagnosed condition. Additionally, the cause of most misdiagnoses were clinical judgment failures.

Researchers suggest that the best methods to combating misdiagnosis are to:

• Improve teamwork skills
• Improve continuing education
• Use technology to help with diagnosis
• Give patients quicker access to medical specialists

Legal Matters

Misdiagnosis is a type of failure to diagnose, whereby instead of failing to diagnose your medical condition, your doctor incorrectly diagnoses your medical condition.

What makes failure to diagnose and misdiagnosis so severe, is that they both commonly lead to severe injury, disability, and even death due to you not receiving the correct treatment for your medical condition.

Failure to diagnose medical malpractice lawsuits can become somewhat complex, as there is an element of human error that needs to be considered. The law doesn’t hold doctors responsible for all failure to diagnose errors or misdiagnoses, so failure to diagnose medical malpractice lawsuits are very dependent on the type of diagnostic error your doctor made and what caused them to make this error.

It’s for this reason that you should consult with a qualified medical malpractice lawyer if you are wanting to file a failure to diagnose medical malpractice lawsuit. These professionals are very knowledgable in this area of the law, and they will be able to help you prove that a failure to diagnose occurred by proving that:

• A doctor-patient relationship existed between you and your doctor
• You would not have suffered your current injury if your doctor had diagnosed you correctly
• A more reasonable doctor would have correctly diagnosed your medical condition and treated you accordingly

If you live in NYC, then you should consult with an NYC medical malpractice attorney who has experience with the medical malpractice laws and the statute of limitations specific to the state.

Contact

If you have read this article and think that you might have been a victim of a failure to diagnose or other diagnostic errors, there is help for you. To get a better understanding of whether medical malpractice did occur, you can speak to the medical malpractice lawyers of Rosenburg, Minc, Falkoff & Wolff LLP in NYC. 

You can have a free, confidential consultation by contacting one of our medical malpractice attorneys on 212-344-1000 today.