Is Failure to Diagnose Considered Malpractice?

21 Nov Is Failure to Diagnose Considered Malpractice?

When they deliver care, a doctor is expected to maintain a certain level of competence. When they fail in this regard, they can sometimes be held liable for being negligent and there may be a chance that you could win a lawsuit that could help you recover damages.

Failing to diagnose a condition is sometimes considered an act of medical malpractice. If you go to the doctor with a specific complaint and that complaint doesn’t trigger an appropriate investigation on the part of the doctors, you might find yourself in a situation where their failure to diagnose your condition ends up causing you further suffering. This is the basis for suing doctors for this type of negligence.

Here is an example that most people will easily understand. If you went into a doctor complaining of a cough, fever, difficulty breathing and a feeling of congestion in your chest, the doctor could be expected to take certain actions. They might check your breathing for rattles, for instance, or they might take a chest x-ray if they were particularly worried about something. In any case, such complaints merit investigation.

If the doctor simply told you to go home, drink liquids and sleep it off without taking a look at your respiratory health, you could get sicker in such a situation. You might have pneumonia or bronchitis, either of which can be very serious, even life-threatening illnesses. If the doctor didn’t make an effort, you got sick and were seriously injured because of it, you might have a case.

Only a lawyer will know for sure whether or not you have a medical malpractice claim that is likely to win. If you do, they very well may want to take that claim and argue it for you in court. This doesn’t mean that you’ll win, however. The jury will still have to decide whether a doctor’s failure to diagnose your illness was an instance of malpractice or an instance where they couldn’t have been reasonably expected to notice that you suffered a particular condition.

You can get medical negligence information from a good physician negligence attorney to see if your case is worth bringing to court. Remember that the initial consultation is usually free and that there’s no commitment, so it’s a good idea to take the opportunity to sit down with the lawyer and to discuss your situation and what kind of options you might have.