Early and accurate diagnosis is the cornerstone of successful medical treatment, critical to saving lives. The importance of the diagnostic process cannot be overstated, and a failure to timely or correctly diagnose a condition can cause preventable death or serious injury to patients. The experienced Raleigh misdiagnosis lawyers at Zaytoun & Ballew have obtained substantial jury verdicts and settlements for clients who needlessly suffered due to a failure to identify an otherwise treatable medical condition.
How Diagnostic Mistakes Happen
Negligent diagnosis, or outright failure to diagnose, are among the most common forms of medical malpractice. Physicians are taught in medical school about the proper use of the “Differential Diagnosis” treatment method, in which the most dangerous and likely conditions must be identified and ruled out through proper testing to determine the true nature of a patient’s illness. However, this method is not always followed and avoidable diagnostic mistakes remain common.
A physician may fail to order standard tests that would identify cancer, or may not recognize the clear symptoms of a life-threatening cardiac event like a heart attack. Mistakes involving vital patient information are also common, as nurses or doctors can fail to gather enough information during a physical examination, fail to record relevant information, or fail to respond to available information. At other times, physicians are simply wrong or too late with a diagnosis, despite warning signs to the contrary, and a patient suffers severe injury or death when their condition would have been treatable with an accurate, timely diagnosis.
Examples of failures to diagnose, misdiagnoses and conditions that are often missed:
- Cancer or a cancerous tumor is missed on an X-ray, MRI or other tests
- Unrecognized heart attack based on misinterpretation of chest pain
- Delayed C-section delivery of a child, resulting in cerebral palsy
- Stroke symptoms go unnoticed
- Failure to recognize airway obstruction and intubation negligence
- Pulmonary embolism
- Ruptured aneurysm
- Undiagnosed infections, such as sepsis
- Compartment syndrome
- Epidural abscess and resulting paralysis
- Staph bacteremia and MSSA and MRSA infections
- Mononucleosis
- Mistakes in radiology and diagnostic imaging, CT scans, MRIs or x-rays
- Endocarditis
The North Carolina misdiagnosis attorneys at Zaytoun & Ballew seek justice and maximum compensation for victims who suffer preventable injury or even death from a diagnostic mistake. For more information about our services and our ability to represent you or a loved one who was harmed by medical malpractice, contact the Raleigh law firm of Zaytoun & Ballew today.
