Medical Malpractice And Misdiagnosis: What You Need To Know
When you go to the doctor, you expect him or her to treat you correctly and not provide you with the wrong diagnosis. Although in a perfect world all doctors would act in due diligence, not all of them do and sometimes the result is a missed diagnosis or an improper diagnosis. When this occurs, it leads to injury and sometimes even death of a patient.
Mistakes do happen and you cannot just sue your doctor because you believe they did not diagnose you correctly. There are a number of things you must prove and this is where an attorney can help you.
How Can an Attorney Help?
A medical malpractice or personal injury attorney is able to help you prove whether or not your doctor acted within his or her scope of duty. If it is determined that your doctor did misdiagnose you or failed to diagnose a serious condition, you can proceed to hold them accountable for their actions.
What Must One Prove in a Medical Malpractice Case?
In a medical malpractice suit, you must prove that you and the doctor has a patient-doctor relationship. You can typically do this by present medical records and showing that you sought care from the doctor.
Next, you will be responsible for showing that the doctor acted negligently. This can be difficult to prove and your attorney will help you gather the information needed to show the negligence. You may be able to use x-rays, CT scans, and more to prove this.
Lastly, it is your job to also prove that you sustained an injury due to the misdiagnosis or wrongful diagnosis of your doctor. For instance, if you suffered brain damage due to a misdiagnosis of a brain condition, then you need to show that if treatment was sought when the incident happened, you would not have suffered brain damage.
Shocking Statistics
When you think about a doctor misdiagnosing a condition, you probably do not think that it happen all that often, right? A CBS News article talks about how 12 million Americans are misdiagnosed every single year. This is a large number and it means that many medical conditions are lingering around without the proper care and treatment.
How to Protect Yourself
If you want to protect yourself from a misdiagnosis or an error in judgement from your doctor, you should seek out a second opinion when you are diagnosed with a condition or when you think a condition should have been diagnosed.
Also, always consult an attorney, like those at Davidson Law Center Inc, when you believe that you may have experienced medical malpractice.
