Earlier this month on our Joliet medical malpractice law blog, we had mentioned that a doctor’s failure to diagnose a patient’s illness or chronic health problem can be traumatizing for patients and their families.
Not only does a misdiagnosis possibly prevent patients from receiving life-saving treatment, a misdiagnosis also causes families to incur unnecessary medical expenses. In extreme cases, a misdiagnosis can result in a patient’s wrongful death. In these situations, families are left devastated and heartbroken. It is never easy to accept the death of a loved one, but it is especially difficult to deal with a loved one’s death knowing that his or her death could have possibly been avoided.
Last month, it was reported that a man filed a lawsuit against an Illinois medical center and doctor for causing his wife’s wrongful death. The man’s wife had cancer and died from the disease. The lawsuit states that the woman’s cancer went undiagnosed for over a year, which prevented her from being able to benefit from treatment that could have saved her life.
Since his wife’s death, the man has had to pay a significant amount in medical expenses and funeral expenses. But worst of all, the man and his family had to watch their loved one suffer. And now the family has been deprived of their loved one’s companionship, support and love. The family is seeking a minimum of $300,000 in damages.
According to the lawsuit, the man’s wife had a bilateral mammogram performed in September 2010 by a radiologist at an Illinois medical facility. The man believes that the doctor who performed the procedure had used substandard equipment, and as a result, the woman’s radiograph was not read accurately by the radiologist. It wasn’t until November 2011 that the woman was finally diagnosed with cancer.
The man’s wife was not able to beat the cancer.
Source: The Madison-St. Clair Record, “Failure to diagnose cancer resulted in death, suit claims,” Andrea Dearden, Oct. 11, 2012
- Our firm provides counsel to those who have been harmed by medical malpractice, including those who have been harmed by a misdiagnosis or failure to diagnose cancer. To learn more about our firm and practice, please visit our Will County medical malpractice page.
