Misdiagnosis

The Threat of a Misdiagnosis Is Critical

A misdiagnosis is a serious concern that will directly impact a patient. This occurs when a patient is deemed to have a particular condition even though that person does not actually suffer from it.

What Conditions Are Misdiagnosed?

There are numerous conditions that doctors often misdiagnose in their patients. For instance, various forms of cancer are often undiagnosed. These include melanoma, breast cancer and lymphoma among many other common cancers. Rare cancers, such as thymoma have also been frequently misdiagnosed.

A misdiagnosis occurs when a doctor provides a patient with an incorrect diagnosis. The first instance of this occurs when a doctor states that a person has one condition when that patient really does not have it. The other case takes place when the doctor fails to diagnose a patient when that person is actually suffering from such a medical condition.

The misdiagnosis often causes a patient to end up receiving treatments that one does not actually require. For instance, a person may be diagnosed as having a form of cancer when that person does not actually have it. This can cause the patient to be subjected to chemotherapy that could do more harm to the body than help.

Heart attacks and other heart-related illnesses may also be conditions that patients may not receive proper diagnoses for. This often occurs because a patient did not experience chest pains or other symptoms associated with heart conditions. This also occurs because the doctor failed to test a patient and use the proper scans.

Other conditions that entail a myriad of symptoms may also not be diagnosed as the physician may fail to create links between certain problems. Celiac disease is a strong example of this in that it entails constipation, abdominal pains, and headaches among other conditions that may seem unrelated at the start.

How the Doctor Is at Fault

A doctor may be at fault because that professional did not use the proper protocols for diagnosing the patient. This may include using improper tests to analyze the patient’s body. In other cases, it can entail the doctor misreading the test results. These are tests and procedures that a physician may have utilized on several patients in the past and might have learned about while studying for one’s degree and certification to practice medicine.

The doctor may not make an effort to acquire every piece of information on a patient as well. The doctor may fail to gather the patient’s entire medical history in some cases.

Failures in Tests

Diagnostic tests may also become problematic. In particular, the equipment used in the testing process can be faulty and will not work. This could be due to a maintenance technician failing to inspect a machine and test it on a regular basis.

In other cases, the samples taken from a patient may be mixed up. This often comes from a hospital or other facility failing to keep clear records on what samples belong to which person.

A technician or other specialist may also miss something during a scan. The testing process may not be completely thorough, thus potentially missing certain issues within the body.

A patient must take a careful look at how one’s body is being treated during the testing process to ensure that a proper diagnosis can be made.