Most doctors are pretty thorough when it comes to examining and diagnosing their patients. These medical professionals know that anything short of a thorough examination could cause them to miss an important symptom and potentially put their patients at risk.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, there are some doctors who have very little regard for patient safety, which causes them to take a recklessly lax approach to examination and diagnosis. Unsurprisingly, this eventually leads to\u00a0misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis<\/b><\/a>\u00a0of serious and life-threatening conditions.<\/p>\n While it didn’t occur here in New York, a recent medical malpractice verdict highlights the dangers that these negligent doctors pose. In 2004, a Washington State woman visited a local physician. She was suffering from pneumonia, but this was not the diagnosis she received. After a very incomplete physical, the doctor somehow diagnosed the woman with terminal cancer.<\/p>\n Thankfully, she did not actually have this fatal disease. However, because the doctor failed to diagnose and treat her pneumonia, her illness caused her to lapse into a coma. Eventually, this led to the amputation of her left foot.<\/p>\n After hearing this evidence, the jury ruled in favor of the plaintiff and she was recently awarded $813,000 in damages.<\/p>\n This was not the doctor’s only serious case of delayed or misdiagnosis. In 2007, he was fined twice by the state for diagnostic errors. The first involved a failure to diagnose a patient with rectal cancer over a period of six years. The second involved a failure to recognize and treat one patient’s cardiac symptoms. The patient later suffered a heart attack.<\/p>\n Thankfully, negligent physicians like this one are the exception and not the rule. Nonetheless, the harm they cause to patients cannot be understated. That’s why anyone who has suffered harm as a result of physician error or negligence should speak with an experienced medical malpractice attorney.<\/p>\n