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Tag Archives: misdiagnosis

How common are medical errors and are they being taken seriously?

Repeat studies on medical malpractice show that medical errors are common and serious. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine the accurate incidence of medical malpractice that causes death due to record keeping and statistics issues. However, according to experts, if medical errors were tracked properly, it may be the third most common cause of death in the United States. Cases of medical mistakes occur in regular hospital rooms, the ICU, the emergency and operating room just as often as in an outpatient doctor’s office, according to specialists. Of note, laboratory errors are also too common with inexperienced technicians and outdated equipment with negligent maintenance sometimes to blame. The high incidence of malpractice death has healthcare safety advocates very concerned. A New York City medical malpractice lawyer notes that this cause of death is all too often swept under the rug. Hospitals, doctors and other health providers sometimes cover up for their mistakes to prevent taking blame for medical injury or death. Other times, they may not have caught their blunder or innacuracy that could have led to a wrongful death or patient harm. Activists in this area point out that intensive scrutiny is often necessary to understand exactly what transpired. This can require medical expert witnesses examining the case and trying to determine if proper medical protocol was followed or if anything was missed. Misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis can cause just as much of a problem as dispensing the wrong medication or overdose of a correct medicine. Experts say that other common medical malpractice events take the form of birth injury, negligent medical advice and failure to treat. Surgical error can include surgery on the wrong side of the body or the wrong surgery altogether. However, sometimes less obvious can be a surgeon who slips and perforates an organ. You can read more about the issue of surgical and medical errors here.

Photo for illustrative purposes only. Photo Credit: Fotos GOVBA [License]

Crucial New York State medical malpractice lawsuit bill up for Senate vote

New York – State senators in Albany have long been debating the passing of an important law to support and protect victims of medical malpractice. The bill corrects a true injustice by extending the statute of limitations for when a lawsuit can be filed by a victim after a medical error or misdiagnosis has transpired. Current law starts the clock at the moment the medical mistake occurred while the new bill would start counting from the moment that the victim discovered the error. A hospital mistake or doctor’s error can sometimes be quite obvious at the moment but that is often not the case. A medical malpractice lawyer in Manhattan, NY explains that many patients are unaware of the mistake until a good deal of time has passed – sometimes even several years. This may be due to the victim’s lack of expertise in the area, the slow progression of the effects of the error, and even possible cover-ups by the offending doctor or hospital. Legislators in New York are now again debating the passing of this bill into law. Proponents note that it is necessary to allow the medical malpractice victim and family to discover the missed diagnosis or mistake and still be allowed to sue for damages as well as pain and suffering. They also note that the patient should be allowed to concentrate on seeking proper medical help as soon as possible and not worry about finding the best malpractice attorney at that moment. The bill has been nicknamed Lavern’s Law in memory of a woman who was the victim of a delayed diagnosis that led to her death. Her family has been fighting hard to pass this into law in order to protect future victims and their families. They hope that the new law will stop protecting bad doctors and hospitals and instead force them to slow down and be more precise in their work, creating better healthcare for everyone. Read more about this bill and its effects on victims of medical malpractice here.

Photo for illustrative purposes only. Photo Credit: Herry Lawford [License]

Study shows misdiagnosis occurs regularly in doctor’s offices

A new research article published in a well-respected medical journal shows that doctors misdiagnose about 12 million adults every year in outpatient clinics and private offices. This is in addition to the hospital patients that are misdiagnosed by doctors on a regular basis. Even more concerning, the investigators explain that approximately 50% of the identified medical mistakes have the possibility to cause serious damage or illness, including wrongful death. A medical malpractice lawyer in New York City notes that he has worked with many victims of hospital errors and doctor’s mistakes. These cases of failure to diagnose often leave patients suffering with more severe illness, disability and pain. Even small delays in diagnosis can lead to catastrophic health consequences, such as spreading of a cancer or an infectious disease. These delays or failures can be attributed to many causes, such as inattentiveness by healthcare providers, illegible handwriting, poor continuing education, or even a facility that is trying to cut corners in order to save money. Patient care activists explain that doctor and nursing carelessness is a well-known problem that needs to be addressed more aggressively by private medical offices, public health clinics and hospitals alike. They say that proper oversight, education and full practice protocols are needed to improve the quality and safety of healthcare while preventing repeated medical negligence. See this article for more about the outpatient misdiagnosis study.

Illustrative photo by DoD [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Misdiagnosis of Lyme disease being discussed by New York senator

New York – Many people, including doctors, automatically associate tick bites with Lyme disease, especially when the bite is followed by fever, headache, and body aches or pain. However, current research shows that this can easily lead to a misdiagnosis of the patients true problem. A senator from New York is pushing for more training of doctors and nurses to make them aware of the various tick-borne diseases that are possible beyond just Lyme. Healthcare professionals are trained to diagnose illnesses of all sorts by working through a list of possibilities, known as a differential diagnosis. However, a top New York City medical malpractice attorney explains that some physicians prematurely jump to conclusions, leading to a missed diagnosis or other medical error. A doctor is more likely to correctly diagnose and treat a patient when all appropriate possibilities have been considered. More importantly, the correct diagnostic tests must be ordered by the doctor in order to avoid a medical mistake. The wrong diagnosis will usually lead to the wrong treatment of the patient’s condition and often associated complications. The complications from the wrong medical treatment can be due to side effects from the treatment used, as well as from failure to treat the actual illness. The current legislative effort has the goal of spreading awareness of other possible diagnoses besides Lyme when it comes to tick bites, including Powassan virus and Boriella miyamotoi. The most common treatment of antibiotics with doxycycline does not work on these other diseases, so a doctor error in one of these cases would lead to failure of the treatment. Some healthcare workers and health insurance companies have claimed that efforts such as this may just lead to defensive medicine and higher cost of care. However, patient advocates note that it is the responsibility of doctors and nurses to study their field of medicine more thoroughly and stay up-to-date of the current research and literature. They say that hospitals and national medical societies should carefully create protocols in order to assure that doctors order the right studies in order to avoid misdiagnosis as well as unnecessary medical testing. Proper health care requires diligence and hard work in order to avoid negligence and failure, according to activists. Read more about other tick-borne diseases and the push for more research here.

Photo by Subconsci Productions (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbconsci/361586876/) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Woman dies of lung cancer after missed diagnosis

New York — A woman from Brooklyn, NY died from complications of lung cancer after doctors at the hospital delayed diagnosis of her deadly condition. Family of the victim say that the hospital’s misdiagnosis was due to not following up on a suspicious finding in an x-ray several years earlier. A small nodule or mass was spotted on a chest x-ray but her doctors failed to properly evaluate this, delaying her cancer diagnosis for over two years. Reports show that the doctors working in the New York City owned hospital were negligent by not fully reading and acting on the x-ray report from the radiologist, which pointed out the suspicious spot and recommended specific follow-up instructions. The missed diagnosis of her lung cancer allowed the disease to continue growing until it metastasized, spreading to her other lung, liver, spine and brain. The original hospital error was compounded when subsequent clinic doctors kept treating the woman’s cough and difficulty breathing as asthma. Those doctors never ordered another chest x-ray or properly reviewed the original one.

Experts have predicted that the woman’s cancer could have been treated properly and her life could have been saved had the doctors not committed medical malpractice several times over those two years. Patient activists say that doctor mistakes like this often occur when protocols and conditions created by the hospital or office don’t meet basic standards for patient safety. They warn that doctors and nurses as well as hospital administrators need to take a close look at the day-to-day running of their facilities in order to ensure the constant rush of patients doesn’t allow for overlooking things. Some note that doctors are quick to order tests but sometimes don’t leave enough time to look at the test results. A medical malpractice lawyer in New York says that when a doctor doesn’t order the proper diagnostic tests and when he or she doesn’t follow up on the tests that were ordered, both situations constitute medical malpractice. Find out more about this medical error case and the consequences here.

Read about another case of failure to diagnose, where top medical malpractice attorneys helped the injured party receive rightful compensation in the amount of $3,425,000.

Photo by Nevit Dilmen (Own work) [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons