Chicago Misdiagnosis Lawyer

Wrong Diagnosis/Failure to Diagnose

Statistically speaking, allegations of wrong diagnosis or failure to diagnose make up over 40% of all medical malpractice claims filed in the United States. In fact, failure to diagnose is the single most common complaint in medical malpractice lawsuits.

The insurance and medical industry like to criticize attorneys who represent patients as playing “Monday morning quarterback” against doctors: the doctors have only seconds or minutes to make “life and death decisions” while the attorneys have months and even years to criticize in hindsight. In reality, the vast majority of failure to diagnose lawsuits involve situations where the doctor had hours, days, or even weeks to “work up” a condition, not seconds or minutes. They involve the situation where the doctor fails even to consider and to rule out through appropriate tests (or consults with specialists) various life threatening causes, instead opting to conclude based on a guess that the symptoms must relate to the most common and least severe cause. These cases usually involve “intellectual laziness” or failing to think before acting. And this sort of error usually occurs because the doctor takes on too many patients or simply doesn’t give the patient and his family enough time to provide all the symptoms, family history, and other details important to reaching a comprehensive list of potential causes for the patient’s condition (called a “differential diagnosis.”) A diagnosis cannot be reached if it is never even considered within the differential. At Friedman & Bonebrake, we take on cases, not just because a bad result occurred, but because the bad result occurred due to a doctor’s failure to think carefully before reaching life and death medical decisions.

For a patient in need of medical care, an incorrect or delayed diagnosis can be devastating. Many injuries and illnesses are only treatable if they are detected immediately; a delay in diagnosis means delay in treatment, possibly leading to permanent damage or even death. Diagnoses are also the basis and starting point for all other phases of medical care. A wrong diagnosis could mean that a patient is given an unnecessary dose of medicine, causing adverse reactions and dangerous side effects, thus doing more harm than good.

If you have suffered due to a wrong diagnosis or a doctor’s failure to diagnose, a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer may be able to assist you. Call Friedman & Bonebrake, P.C., at 312-466-8200 to speak with a Chicago misdiagnosis lawyer today.