According to estimates, 1,735,350 new cancer cases were diagnosed in 2018 in the US, and 609,640 people succumbed to the disease. Cancer has an average five-year survival rate of nearly 60 percent, but that differs significantly depending on the form of cancer. In general, the chances of survival are higher if the cancer is diagnosed and treated early. 

Unreasonable delays in cancer diagnosis are grounds for a medical malpractice claim. But malpractice cases are complex, and there are various roadblocks that you need to identify and overcome to be able to create a solid case for damages.

In October 2011, Amanda Velasquez, a pregnant 20-year-old, walked to Woodhull Medical Centre to see her obstetrician. She was experiencing blurred vision and worried that she was losing her eyesight. Her obstetrician assured her that she had nothing to worry about, and she went home.

Unfortunately, Amanda’s symptoms of cloudy vision and pressure around her eyes didn’t go away, and she visited the hospital six more times with the same complaint, but her obstetrician chose to fixate on her pregnancy rather than check her eyes and told her that there was no problem at each visit.

Failure to diagnose is a kind of diagnostic error that is caused by your doctor being negligent in treating you. If your doctor doesn’t take the necessary steps to determine what illness you have, then you are at risk of sustaining an injury or disability; in fact, some people have even lost their lives due to a doctor’s failure to diagnose. Ultimately, failure to diagnose leads to you receiving delayed or incorrect treatment, or no treatment at all.

In 2007, Ed McMahon, a TV show host, suffered a fall at a Los Angeles home which resulted in a fractured neck. He went to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center the following morning for assessment. Doctors at the hospital did not take an X-ray and failed to diagnose his neck fracture. They discharged him without further investigation. 

When Ed continued to experience increasing pain and discomfort, he returned to the hospital. A full assessment was conducted, and it was revealed that he did, in fact, have a fractured neck. Ed underwent two spine surgeries to repair the damage, however, he later claimed that these two surgeries were both botched. He suffered great pain and discomfort for months as a result and indicated that he interrupted his activities of daily living and regular functioning. 

On the 11th of September, 2003, John Ritter, a well-known comedic actor on shows such as “Three’s Company” and “8 Simple Rules,” died as a result of an aortic dissection – also known as a tear in the inner layer of the aorta. This condition is fatal, as the aorta is the main blood vessel that transports blood away from your heart and to the rest of your body. 

The signs and symptoms of aortic dissection and heart attack are very similar; thus doctors need to be stringent and follow all the necessary protocols to ensure that an accurate diagnosis is made. 

A doctor’s failure to diagnose occurs when they are negligent or fail to take the necessary steps to determine the nature of your illness, which then causes you harm. The reason for this harm is because a doctor’s failure to diagnose can lead to incorrect or delayed treatment being administered or worse, no treatment is administered at all.

There are several factors that contribute to failure to diagnose within the primary healthcare system, with some being more prevalent than others. Such diagnostic errors include:

A doctor’s failure to diagnose a patient’s medical condition is the most common reason why patients sue their doctors. This statistic also includes a doctor misdiagnosing a patient and/or delaying their diagnosis.

What is Failure to Diagnose?

Failure to diagnose is caused by a doctor’s negligence or failure to take the specific steps necessary to determine the nature of your illness. This negligence then causes you harm, as treatment is either delayed or isn’t administered at all, due to there being no record of it.

In 2013, Johns Hopkins researchers found that diagnostic errors – such as failure to diagnose – accounted for the largest fraction of medical malpractice claim payouts. Diagnostic errors also resulted in the most severe patient harm and the highest total penalty payouts.

In fact, Doctor David E. Newman-Toker at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine argues that diagnostic errors could easily be the biggest patient safety and medical malpractice problem in the United States.

According to a recent study, in almost 16% of the cases, radiologists will report false-positive cancer readings in mammogram x-rays. Many of these radiologists are younger and newly trained doctors who may be likely to make more errors in interpretation than their more experienced counterparts.

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that only if the radiologists could compare films from their earlier mammogram screenings, the rate of these “false-positives” could be lowered significantly.

Dr. Joann Elmore, professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington (School of Medicine), says that it is alarming how common false-positives have become in the US. She also said that false-positives are most likely to occur in the case of breast cancer mammogram screenings but it shouldn’t discourage women from having annual check-ups.

Lewy body dementia refers to a particular kind of dementia that has three possible initial presentations. New Yorkers who have LBD are sometimes misdiagnosed as having Alzheimer’s because the two conditions have some of the same symptoms. This can be harmful to people with LBD because they may respond positively to some dementia medications that are less likely to be prescribed if they are erroneously diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and because people with LBD may respond negatively to some Alzheimer’s drugs, sometimes with lasting side effects.