Medical Malpractice Lawyer Serving Vermont

A misdiagnosis, in its simplest terms, is a wrong or incorrect diagnosis. When a misdiagnosis occurs and it leads to the wrong treatment, no treatment, or a delay in treatment, it can provide the basis for a medical malpractice claim. If you or a family member has suffered a significant illness or injury as a result of a misdiagnosis, you should contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible.

When a patient presents to a health care provider or facility, the Nurse, Doctor, Nurse Practitioner, physician assistant, and/or others must gather as complete and accurate a picture of the presenting symptoms and complaints as reasonably possible under the circumstances. To obtain such a picture, the provider must find out the patient’s past general medical history. This can be done by speaking to the patient and knowledgeable family members, looking up prior medical records, and even speaking to some of the relevant prior treating providers. In addition, the history of the events that resulted in the patient coming in for treatment should be gathered by similar means. An appropriate physical examination, and sometimes a mental health evaluation, is also necessary to avoid a misdiagnosis.

It is important that, based on the information obtained, the treating provider formulate a differential diagnosis, to make sure that the most serious of all of the reasonably possible diagnoses are ruled out as quickly as possible. Often, a misdiagnosis occurs because of a failure to timely order appropriate diagnostic testing, or by failing to properly and thoroughly examine the patient.

A misdiagnosis can also result from the failure to obtain a timely consultation from a specialist or the inability to provide sufficient or accurate information to a specialist who is consulted. Sometimes medical malpractice occurs when more than one of these failures occurs. A misdiagnosis, with the resultant failure to timely treat a condition, frequently involves cancer, strokes, and heart disease.

David has successfully handled medical malpractice cases involving a misdiagnosis.