Anyone who feels a lump in any part of their body rushes to the hospital, hoping it's not cancer. About 28% of these cases get misleading or delayed diagnoses.
The physician prescribes a treatment process that is not cancer-related. Eventually, cancer develops into a life-threatening condition. Some people have experienced such situations and lost loved ones because of a misdiagnosis of cancer.
To sue for malpractice, you need to understand the cause of the misdiagnosis, the physician's duty of care, and the circumstances under which this condition becomes medical malpractice.
What Leads to a Cancer Misdiagnosis?
Understanding the cause of the misdiagnosis plays a major role in filing a lawsuit. Cancer misdiagnosis usually occurs because of human or physician error. Some of the causes include the following:
- The type of cancer. Cancer is challenging to determine. The most common ones include breast cancer, melanoma, pancreatic cancer, and lung cancer.
- The symptoms. Some physicians diagnose the wrong kind of cancer and administer an inappropriate treatment method in cases where a patient's symptoms mimic another kind of cancer.
- The test result errors. Sometimes, misdiagnosis occurs when doctors rely on diagnostic test results from the pathological laboratory or radiology clinic. These tests are prone to errors because of faulty machinery and human error. The lab employee may also record the wrong test results.
- Doctor negligence. In other cases, doctors fail to exercise professional skills during tests and when establishing symptoms.
What Is the Doctor's Duty of Care When Making a Diagnosis?
Once you ascertain the reason behind the misdiagnosis, determine whether the doctor owed a duty of care to you as a patient. These include their responsibility to thoroughly assess the condition, diagnose, communicate, and refer the patient for better medical care.
Every physician must uphold their duty of care to patients. They are legally required to provide quality medical care without causing harm to the patients. A misdiagnosis due to medical negligence indicates that the physician did not meet the industry's standard of care and violated the legal duty, and they should be held responsible for any damages.
To prove the breach in this standard of care, you will need to find an experienced medical expert and explain every aspect of your case. They should be willing to testify regarding what a responsible doctor with similar training and education would have done under the same circumstances. They can also explain a subjective thought of what the physician did or did not do to cause the misdiagnosis.
When Does a Misdiagnosis Become a Medical Malpractice?
For a physician's actions or lack of actions to be medical malpractice, you must prove that a timely diagnosis would likely lead to a significantly better outcome. Some cancers offer low survival rates to patients. In such a case, a week or month difference in an accurate diagnosis could not have made a difference in the outcome.
But, if cancer is caught early, chemotherapy and other treatment measures can eliminate the cells in time because they may not have metastasized.
Some medical malpractice circumstances on which you can base your claim include:
- Dismissed complaints. These complaints were in line with the cancerous cells diagnosis.
- Failure to determine cancer symptoms.
If these symptoms were so apparent that even a less experienced physician could notice, the doctor violated their duty of care.
- Failure to recommend the right tests. The doctor did not order an appropriate blood test or scan.
- Misinterpretation of diagnostic tests. The physician misinterpreted X-ray reports and CT scans.
Once you notice your physician violated your rights to proper cancer diagnosis, talk to an experienced lawyer and file a lawsuit. At the Law Offices of Janice Maloney, we care about our clients and provide quality legal representation.
Contact us to work with a reputable medical malpractice attorney.
