When we entrust our well-being to our primary care physician or to specialists, such as an oncologist, we rightly expect our doctors to exercise the accepted standard of care, including the correct, timely diagnoses of diseases such as cancer that a physician has the ability to deliver. How shocking, then, when a patient learns that he or she has an advanced stage of cancer, despite previous complaints of symptoms which were disregarded during doctors’ visits? At our firm, our cancer misdiagnosis attorneys help injured victims seek compensation.
If you or a loved one has suffered due to a misdiagnosis or a failure to diagnose, it is important to seek legal representation. Contact our personal injury lawyers to schedule an initial consultation to discuss your situation.
How Is Cancer Misdiagnosed or Undiagnosed?
It can be baffling to try and understand how medical professionals can make such a crucial error as a failed or delayed diagnosis of cancer. Our medical malpractice attorneys will launch a thorough investigation into what went wrong. We will see if there is evidence of one or more of the following causes:
Your doctor ignored your complaints, although your symptoms closely matched well-known symptoms of that type of cancer.
A diagnostic laboratory made a mistake. Perhaps your slide was switched with another person’s slide — or the pathologist misread your slide.
A radiologist may have failed to detect early stage lung cancer when studying your chest X-ray.
The nursing home where your elderly parent was a resident failed to provide timely physicals as promised.
Although cancer has often been considered a fatal disease, medical research has developed new therapies and diagnostic procedures. Some cancers respond to medication, such as chemotherapy, and radiation treatments. The earlier they are correctly diagnosed, the more likely it is that an oncologist will recommend the course of treatment most likely to result in survival. When medical malpractice is committed by failing to diagnose, turn to the lawyers at our firm who can help you seek full and fair compensation.