Millions of people are diagnosed with cancer each year. Unfortunately, cancer is one of the more common types of misdiagnosis. Misdiagnosis can lead to severe consequences for the patients who fall victim to being misdiagnosed. When a cancer is not identified correctly or is mistaken as another condition, the treatment can be delayed.
If a patient does not receive the appropriate and timely care and treatment for cancer, the cancer can progress rapidly, and the situation can quickly become life-threatening. If this has been the case, you may have grounds for legal action against the medical provider who misdiagnosed you.
If a doctor has failed to diagnose cancer and you have suffered medical complications that could have been avoided with a proper diagnosis, including needing chemotherapy, radiation, or more extensive surgery that might not have been required if the cancer was detected earlier, or if a loved one has died because a physician failed to diagnose his or her cancer, or the diagnosis was delayed, you may be able to file a medical malpractice suit and recover compensation for the damages suffered. A medical malpractice lawyer can review the circumstances and determine the best way to proceed with your claim.
A Doctor Has A Duty To Timely Diagnose Cancer
Physicians have the legal duty to ensure that quality medical care is provided and that the right diagnosis has been made, so their patients are not harmed. If your physician fails to provide treatment that meets the standard of care for a similar condition, your provider may have violated their legal duty. Thus, they become responsible for your injuries and damages caused by their oversight or lapse of diagnosis.
To establish the proper standard of care, you must enlist the help of a medical expert who can testify about what would be appropriate care provided by a reasonable medical professional who had undergone the same or similar training and educational experiences and who was treating a patient in the same or similar circumstances with a similar medical condition and symptoms.
Also, the medical expert will review what the physician should have done to ensure you were accurately diagnosed and treated appropriately. The expert could provide an opinion regarding what the doctor did or failed to do and how it led to your misdiagnosis.
Situations In Which Failing To Diagnose Cancer Is Medical Malpractice
Determining whether a doctor’s actions or failure to act is medical malpractice depends on whether a prompt diagnosis would have had the likelihood of more effective treatment and a better outcome for the patient in question. Some kinds of cancer have a lower survival rate. In those cases, a more accurate diagnosis just days or even weeks earlier might not have significantly impacted the patient’s outcome. But there are many situations in which catching cancer early can impact the outcome, and the survival rate can improve significantly if the cancer does not spread or metastasize.
If you or a loved one had cancer and was misdiagnosed or not accurately diagnosed, you should speak with a Los Angeles medical malpractice attorney to see if you have a claim and recoup your losses. Contact the Trial Law Office of Bradley I. Kramer, M.D., Esq., for a free case evaluation.