Doctors and nurses are often highly trained to care for patients suffering from severe medical conditions. Patients have to put their trust in medical professionals to seek the care they desire. However, their trust may be broken if they believe they’re suffering from medical malpractice.
Two kinds of medical malpractice that patients often overlook are missed diagnoses and misdiagnosis. What’s the difference between these two similar-sounding terms? Here’s what you should know:
What is a missed diagnosis?
There are two ways a patient may have had a missed diagnosis. The first way can happen after a patient seeks medical attention after suffering from a condition or complication and isn’t diagnosed or treated. The second way a missed diagnosis can happen is if a patient did get tested but had no diagnosis. As a result, the patient’s condition can worsen when it could have been treated early on.
This can happen, for example, when a doctor refuses to give a patient proper medical attention. The doctor may believe that a patient is seeking medicine that isn’t necessary, so treatment or a diagnosis isn’t done.
What is a misdiagnosis?
Simply put, when a doctor diagnoses a patient with the wrong medical condition, then the patient is suffering from misdiagnosis. Misdiagnoses often happen because many medical conditions have similar symptoms.
As a result of the misdiagnosis, the patient may be prescribed a medication that doesn’t help with their medical condition. The prescribed medication may even cause the patient to suffer from additional medical complications while the original condition continues to worsen since it is still untreated. That can create a complex medical situation from which it is hard to recover.
If you believe that you’ve been misdiagnosed or had a missed diagnosis, then you may be a victim of medical malpractice. Experienced legal guidance can help you learn more.
