Part of being a doctor is diagnosing symptoms. Like everything else in life, some doctors are better diagnosticians than others. Sometimes a missed diagnosis isn’t a big deal, but other times, a missed diagnosis can be life or death. Especially when it comes to quickly processing diseases, like cancer or heart attack, failing to diagnose can directly result in a shortened life span.
New York patients who have suffered because a doctor or physician missed a cancer diagnosis have the ability to speak with a New York failure to diagnose cancer lawyer. A lawyer can handle a malpractice claim for the patient and make sure that the patient is adequately compensated for the injury that resulted from the misdiagnosis.
A recent article pointed out the key elements in making doctors good diagnosticians. A doctor should not always be looking for the uncommon diseases or explanation. It is important to realize that complex symptoms may have very simple, standard explanations and that, vice versa, simple symptoms may end up being very complex cases.
Doctors need to listen well to patients to make sure they full understand the symptoms. It is important to order the right tests, to not unnecessary waste time and correctly read the test results. Doctors also need to use critical thinking skills to come up with solutions and cures.
Errors in diagnoses are no laughing matter. After a review of over 200,000 patient visits at two large medical facilities researchers found that almost 200 cases had the potential to cause moderate to severe harm for patients. Even scarier was that these mistakes were with “simple” issues like primary cancer or congestive heart failure, things that doctors are not expected to miss.
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Doctors have tools to avoid failing to diagnose patients
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Jay W. Dankner
JAY W. DANKNER was born, raised and educated in Brooklyn, New York. After graduation from law school in 1973, he joined the firm of the legendary, Harry H, Lipsig, under whose tutelage he learned the intricacies of civil litigation and trials. He tried and won his first case against General Motors in a case involving a design defect within weeks after his admission. Thereafter, he focused his attention on the emerging and developing field of law known as products liability litigation.
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