Blog: Failure To Diagnose

As hospitalists practices grow, so too do med mal cases

May 24, 2013

In the medical field there are many things that could happen in a hospital that could ultimately lead to a medical malpractice claim. There are also a variety of individuals who might be responsible for providing care to patients. Over the course of the last decade, individuals referred to as hospitalists have been added to that group. Last year, the number of hospitalists was estimated to be 35,000. Perhaps not surprisingly, as this group of...

Pittsburgh Legionnaire outbreak leads to civil lawsuits

Apr 24, 2013

Earlier this year we wrote a post about the outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in a Pittsburgh VA Hospital. The outbreak led to five deaths. At that time the CDC had recently released the results of its investigation into the matter. The results of that investigation pointed to construction being done at the hospital as a possible vehicle for spreading the disease. More recently, news broke regarding a lawsuit that has been filed related to one...

Delayed lung cancer diagnosis medical malpractice case settles

Mar 6, 2013

Last month we wrote a post on a woman who was left with six months to live after a doctor misdiagnosed nodules on her lung in an X-ray as asthma several years ago. By the time the cancer was diagnosed, it had already spread to her other lung as well as other parts of her body. According to at least one doctor, it is possible that prompt treatment could have led to a cure. The...

Children not immune from misdiagnosis in healthcare settings

Feb 27, 2013

Patient injuries that are the result of medical errors in a healthcare setting are undeniably difficult to deal with regardless of the type of injury or its severity. Most Butler County residents would agree however that those in which the injured patient is a child are especially difficult to handle. The actions that constitute medical negligence in the case of a youth are often the same that affect adults and include the failure to diagnose...

Misdiagnosis ends viable pregnancy

Feb 20, 2013

For many throughout the nation one of the most exciting parts of life is the birth of a child. Sadly in some cases pregnancies do not go full term and the unborn baby is lost in utero. This is usually devastating and can lead to great sadness and depression. In other tragic instances fetuses are lost due to a misdiagnosis of a condition. This happened to a woman residing in another state a couple of...

Failure to diagnose leaves single mom with six months to live

Jan 16, 2013

A single mother, feeling chest pains, visited a local hospital emergency room. Despite a chest X-ray that displayed a suspicious two centimeter nodule in the woman's right lung, the hospital doctor advised her to go home and take Motrin, failing to advise her of the X-ray results. This is another example of the danger of a failure to diagnose the extent of a patient's problems. Unfortunately, this happens in Pennsylvania and around the U.S. at...

Ohio amputee wants delay in medical malpractice lawsuit

Oct 26, 2012

There are innumerable ways in which an individual seeking medical assistance could end up filing a medical malpractice lawsuit. For one woman, who was formerly a college student at Ohio University, the catalyst for her lawsuit was a failure to diagnose. She has actually filed two lawsuits as a result of the misdiagnosis. In the first lawsuit, filed in the Ohio Court of Claims, she claimed a misdiagnosis by health care providers at OU's Hudson...

Doctors who wrongly declared 8-year-old dead are sued

Oct 24, 2012

A hospital in one of the nation's largest cities faces a lawsuit from the parents of an 8-year old, with severe brain damage. The boy's parents allege that doctors made grave hospital errors and diagnostic mistakes in declaring the child dead, keeping him from his ventilator, although family members insisted that the child's eyes and body still moved. Although this tragic incident did not occur at a Pennsylvania hospital, people should be aware that any...

Man’s death in hospital lobby prompts lawsuit

Sep 28, 2012

It is of course never okay for a patient to die due to negligent actions of health care providers. There are however some situations that are more egregious than others. A failure to diagnose a condition is bad enough. What about when the patient's condition is fairly clear and yet the patient is told that he or she can leave the emergency room and follow-up with his or her own doctor? And what if that...

Colon cancer affecting younger individuals leading to misdiagnosis

Aug 8, 2012

There are many different reasons a person might end up filing a wrongful death lawsuit. One of those possibilities is a failure or delay in a diagnosis. There are a variety of scenarios that could contribute to a medical professional failing to recognize a disease or illness. One that recently affected a woman was a doctor's failure to order a test that could reveal the presence of colon cancer. Several years ago the woman sought...