Failing to diagnose a patient isn’t always a sign of malpractice, but there are times when it is. As someone who now has an advanced stage of cancer, you may not be sure why your previous complaints and tests didn’t signal that something was wrong. Your medical provider assured you that you were fine.
Now, you just want to know if your case is malpractice or not. Your disease advanced due to a lack of treatment, but was it your doctor’s fault? Here are two things to consider:
1. Malpractice is a result of errors or negligence
Errors or negligence are the cause of malpractice. You’ll need to be able to show that your medical provider, or someone looking at test results, made a mistake that led to your misdiagnosis. If your test results were all normal and all other medical providers would have agreed previously, then it may be hard to show that your current state of health could have been prevented with earlier treatment.
2. Misdiagnoses aren’t necessarily a failure to diagnose
Misdiagnoses sometimes happen because many diseases have similar symptoms. Medical providers may have to treat you for multiple diseases before seeing which treatment actually responds. With something like cancer, it should be easy to tell if it’s lung cancer, skin cancer or other forms, but it isn’t always that simple. Some cancers are hard to detect, while others may occur simultaneously.
If you can show that your medical provider made a mistake that others in the field would not have, then you’re in a good position to file a medical malpractice claim.