Medical Malpractice Lawyer Serving Vermont

Improper, wrong, or inadequate treatment can form the basis for a medical malpractice claim. Such treatment often stems from a misdiagnosis or failure to form an appropriate differential diagnosis in the first instance, when these result from the failure to follow the applicable standard of care. If you believe that you or a family member has been injured or has become ill as a result of improper treatment, you should contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible.

When a patient is misdiagnosed, it is easy to imagine how that might lead to improper treatment. For instance, a misdiagnosis may lead to being given the wrong medication, the failure to have the appropriate diagnostic tests ordered and treatment, even unnecessary surgery, for a condition that the patient does not have. The consequences of a misdiagnosis can be minor or severe. The sooner a misdiagnosis is corrected, the less likely it is that there will be severe consequences.

The failure to formulate an appropriate differential diagnosis often arises in the emergency room setting. A differential diagnosis is a way of analyzing the presentation of a patient to the health care provider. It involves coming up with a list of possible diagnoses that share similar clinical features or conditions. A differential diagnosis prioritizes the work up of the patient, to help rule out the most serious possible causes first, in order to limit catastrophic results. For example, when someone presents to the doctor or hospital with chest pain, a heart attack should usually be included in the differential diagnosis. Similarly, when a patient presents with weakness of the extremities on one side of the body, and a facial droop on that side, a stroke should be included in the differential diagnosis. In either case, a prompt workup to confirm or rule out such a diagnosis is required so that timely and proper treatment can be rendered to limit the damage caused by those conditions. Accordingly, if the patient is treated for a pulled muscle in either scenario, before these other more serious causes are ruled out, that treatment would be considered improper.

David has successfully handled cases that involve improper treatment.