Getting the right diagnosis for a medical condition is imperative to providing Texas residents with treatment that will improve their health. While not all illnesses are easy to identify, doctors can often find the right answers to even the most challenging medical conundrums when they work through differential diagnoses and consult with professionals in other specialties. A diagnosis can take time to discover, but when the right one is identified it can set a patient on the road to recovery.
However, mistakes and negligence can plague the diagnostic process and can leave patients reeling with unbearable medical ailments. For example, if a doctor simply stops their diagnostic evaluation at a single diagnosis without looking at other causes, they may misdiagnose their patient with an erroneous condition.
Also, if a doctor begins treatment for the wrong ailment with surgical or medication-based therapies, a patient may suffer increased pain and suffering from those courses of action. Treating a misdiagnosis can put a patient in a dangerous medical position if the actions taken by their doctors are invasive or threatening to their actual, underlying condition.
Finally, a failure to diagnose action could stem from a doctor disregarding a patient’s complaints and assuming that their ailment is transitory and does not need further medical assessment. A patient with a serious medical condition could be sent home without any support and could be left with a condition that worsens without treatment. Individuals who have concerns that they may have been victims of possible failure to diagnose cases may need to get more information about their own unique case.