Doctors and other healthcare workers are not perfect; sometimes, they do things at work that harm the people they are supposed to help.
Occasionally, they make mistakes when diagnosing patients.
Sometimes, these diagnostic errors are excusable, such as when an emergency room doctor needs to quickly assess an unconscious patient and make a split-second decision about what is ailing them.
In this exigent circumstance, the emergency room doctor is acting swiftly to try to save the patient’s life.
Suppose they make a mistake in trying to diagnose the patient.
In that case, it might not be malpractice because the emergency room doctor made a quick decision without having access to the unconscious patient’s complete medical history.
Other diagnostic errors occur because of negligent behaviors, such as when a primary care doctor does not give their full attention to their patient due to overscheduling.
When a doctor does not take the time to listen to their patient’s complaints or give them a complete examination, they might not be able to accurately diagnose what is ailing them.
When determining if a doctor’s error is excusable or amounts to actionable malpractice, the court would review if the doctor’s mistake fell below the reasonable standard of care.
The court would compare the doctor’s actions to those of other reasonable doctors facing similar situations.
There might be a claim for negligence if, when looking at a patient’s symptoms, another doctor would have ordered additional diagnostic testing or identified their condition.
Our Toledo misdiagnosis attorneys could review a patient’s medical charts, review the evidence, and assess whether the injured patient might have a valid claim for medical malpractice.
