One of the most common types of medical malpractice claims involves a failure to diagnose. In these types of claims, a doctor may have failed to make a diagnosis in a timely manner (or at all), and the patient has suffered because of it.
When filing a failure to diagnose lawsuit, you must be able to prove that the doctor’s failure was as a result of his or her negligence, and was not simply a reasonable error. Doctors are expected to provide a certain standard of care to their patients, which may vary based on the patient’s age and the type of condition. However, in general, doctors must take reasonable steps to ensure that their patients receive the best care possible.
In addition to proving that the doctor failed to meet that standard of care, you must also prove that this failure caused your injuries. In a failure to diagnose case, this means demonstrating that a diagnosis in a timely manner would have prevented your condition from worsening — or from happening at all.
Just because doctors fail to make a diagnosis does not mean that they were negligent. There is no law in place that holds doctors accountable to correctly diagnosing patients in every single case. They are simply expected to meet a standard of care. If it is found that the doctor took reasonable steps to figure out what was wrong with you and how he or she could solve it, then the doctor would not be guilty of medical malpractice.
It can be challenging to determine whether or not physicians have done all that was expected of them. To determine whether you have a case for failure to diagnose, meet with an experienced North Carolina medical malpractice attorney at Lanier Law Group.
