A brain aneurysm is a health condition that requires urgent medical care and attention. However, doctors could misdiagnose this health issue or fail to notice it during a patient's initial consultation. Sometimes, the patient agonizes because of the incorrect...
Misdiagnosis
Can a false diagnosis of cancer harm your health?
You know that health care providers are human and can make mistakes, but that doesn’t help if you’re injured through malpractice. You might expect wrongdoing to involve errors that cause immediate injury, but it also happens in other ways -- some of them unexpected....
Women are more likely than men to deal with misdiagnosis
Medical professionals should treat all of their patients with the same regard and respect. They take an oath to do no harm, regardless of the situation. Unfortunately, the reality of modern healthcare falls far short of that idealized vision. Doctors make mistakes...
Diagnostic failure is why we have Cervical Cancer Awareness Month
January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month. One of the reasons that there is a month devoted to this female-only form of cancer is that it often goes undiagnosed for a significant amount of time. The longer it takes someone to get a diagnosis of cervical cancer, the...
COPD patients may be living with a misdiagnosis
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, is a condition that causes persistent respiratory issues such as progressive breathlessness and cough. It’s a serious condition, but it is one for which there are treatments. Unfortunately, many of the patients who are...
A missed asthma diagnosis could be fatal
Asthma is a disease that causes chronic inflammation in the lungs. In a flare, the lungs and bronchial tubes swell, making it difficult, if not impossible, to breathe. Being misdiagnosed creates a significant risk for the patient: Without bronchodilators, medications...
What else does skin cancer look like?
Many medical errors happen when a doctor mistakes one condition for another and makes an inaccurate diagnosis. There are cases in which doctors sent patients home telling them that they were suffering from indigestion when it was actually a heart attack. Doctors have...
How often do doctors misdiagnose cancer?
If there's one sentiment that doctors often repeat about cancer, it's that early detection is key. Any delay in diagnosis means that a patient's prognosis will decline. You should know how common it is for cancer to be misdiagnosed as something else and which cancers...
Could medical diagnosis errors be reduced?
No matter what career you are in, you will make errors from time to time. However, when someone works as a doctor, they cannot afford to make mistakes. According to a study by the John Hopkins Armstrong Institute, U.S. doctors make around 100,000 diagnosis errors each...
Racism and sexism can affect the medical care you receive
Medical doctors are among the most highly educated of all professionals. Many people tend to think of doctors as more ethical than people in other professions because they make a career out of caring for others. Unfortunately, medicine doesn't automatically make...
