You go to the doctor and are diagnosed with cancer. You feel a whole wave of emotions, but it never occurs to you to assume that the doctor could be wrong. You trust them. You came for a professional opinion and now you have it. You’ve begun thinking about the next steps you’ll need to take.
While doctors are often right, it’s important to know that a misdiagnosis could have taken place. There are cases where doctors fail to diagnose a different condition because they think it’s cancer when it isn’t. Some of these cases have gone to fairly extreme lengths.
For instance, doctors once told a woman that she had breast cancer when she was 54 years old. They said it was very advanced and could take her life. To combat it, she had surgery and went through chemo. After seven months of expensive and physically exhausting treatments, she got a second opinion. That doctor told her that she did not have breast cancer, she never had, and that the first doctor had simply made a mistake.
“When you’re told you have stage IV terminal cancer, that’s it,” the woman said in an interview. “I put trust in the doctor.”
How did she feel after finding out? She was glad not to have terminal cancer, of course, but she was outraged that she had gone through all of that for nothing.
“I was happy, but at the same time, I had that anger,” she noted. “The damage had been done.”
If you have suffered in any way because of a misdiagnosis, make sure you know what legal options you have to seek out financial compensation.