Misdiagnosis
In the various stages of nearly every illness or disorder, different symptoms will present themselves. One of the first things that doctors learn in medical school is the art of differential diagnosis – the practice of determining all the different diagnoses that could be causing the patient’s symptoms and systematically ruling out the most dangerous. At Cirignani Heller & Harman LLP, we have found that the proper diagnosis of a patient’s condition is most often missed because the doctor didn’t consider all of the alternatives and “jumped to a conclusion” prematurely. By then the patient has suffered serious complications or even death.
If you or a loved one has been the victim of a misdiagnosis in Chicago or throughout the state of Illinois, contact us online today to speak with one of our experienced misdiagnosis attorneys.
Not all these cases amount to medical malpractice, of course. However, very often a malpractice lawsuit is warranted, especially in cases of obvious negligence when the physician has missed diagnosing an especially virulent or impairing disease:
- Cancer: If your family member is suffering from lung cancer, but the doctors diagnose pleurisy, important time may pass before radiation or chemotherapy is started.
- Brain tumor: If the doctors misdiagnose a brain tumor as muscular sclerosis, proper treatment options are left out of consideration.
- Diabetes: If a child has diabetes, but the physician says the parents are overprotective, the child could suffer serious harm before being put on insulin.
- Heart conditions: Heart ailments can masquerade as viral infections. Unless properly diagnosed, proper medication options will be overlooked.
