If a physician ignores certain symptoms you are experiencing or orders the wrong test, you may be the victim of a misdiagnosis. It is estimated that misdiagnoses account for roughly 371,000 fatalities, and 424,000 patients become permanently disabled each year. If you were misdiagnosed, our Harrisburg medical malpractice lawyers want to help you recover just compensation for the harm you have endured.
What is a Misdiagnosis?
A misdiagnosis is “the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim.” A misdiagnosis occurs when a physician labels your symptoms as representative of a disease or condition you do not actually have. Unfortunately, the wrong diagnosis typically involves prescribing a medication or administering a treatment that will not help improve your condition and, in some cases, may have fatal consequences.
Why Do Misdiagnoses Occur?
A misdiagnosis may occur for any of the following reasons:
- Failure to get a complete patient history
- Not including symptoms as part of the differential
- Failure to follow up with the patient
- Symptoms that can be attributed to more than one condition
- Miscommunication between the doctor and the patient
- Physician ordering the wrong test to diagnose the condition
- Incorrect reading of medical imaging
Due to its diverse warning signs, nearly ten percent of strokes are misdiagnosed. Even a slight delay in diagnosing a stroke can result in permanent neurological damage, causing permanent paralysis, loss of mobility, and speech defects.
Establishing Physician Negligence in Misdiagnoses
To have grounds to sue a physician for negligence, the physician must have breached the acceptable standard of care, that breach must be the cause of your injuries, and the misdiagnosis must have resulted in you sustaining measurable losses.
Causation can often be difficult to prove in misdiagnosis cases since you must prove that your injuries directly result from the physician’s actions. In the law, there are two types of causation: actual and proximate cause. The actual cause is the event that caused your injuries. The “but for” test is often used to determine the actual cause, asking if an event would have occurred if another event did not occur. In contrast, proximate cause is the legal cause of your injuries. In the case of misdiagnosis, the actual and proximate cause of your injuries may not necessarily be the same party.
For example, the physician who misdiagnosed you would be the actual cause of your injuries. Still, the radiologist who misread your MRI may be the legal cause since your treating physician likely depended on their interpretation of your scan in forming their diagnosis. However, using the “but for” test, if the physician did not prescribe the medication, you would not have developed cardiac arrest, confirming that the treating doctor is the actual cause of your harm. A medical malpractice attorney will be tasked with discerning the circumstances that led to your medical outcome and establishing both types of causation.
Consult with a Harrisburg Medical Malpractice Lawyer Today
You may be entitled to damages if you experienced a misdiagnosis that resulted in significant harm. At Marzella and Associates, we pride ourselves on working with people who have experienced hardship. Our Harrisburg medical malpractice lawyers have assisted countless clients in recovering the financial resources they need to heal. If you want a free case evaluation, contact our office online or by phone today.