The Most Common Kind of Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice is a complex subject. While surgical errors are the most recognized kind of malpractice, medical negligence most often happens in your average doctor’s office. To explain why that is, we need to look at the most common kind of medical malpractice.

Misdiagnosis

According to the BMJ, a medical trade journal, misdiagnosis is the most common kind of medical malpractice in the United States by a mile. In a given year, nearly 12 million American adults (1-in-20) will be misdiagnosed.

Of those misdiagnosed adults, about 15% (1.8 million) face a life-threatening illness that went untreated. Cancer misdiagnoses are even more common. On average, about 50% of mammograms had a significant reinterpretation when given a second opinion.

The Harm of a Misdiagnosis

Misdiagnosis is a serious matter for two reasons. First, if your doctor does not correctly diagnose you and tries to treat an ailment that you don’t have, your illness could worsen over time. This is especially frightening with cancer misdiagnoses, where each day the condition goes untreated is another day for the tumors to spread or potentially metastasize into other parts of the body.

The other issue is that by treating you for the wrong condition, your doctor could inadvertently make your situation much worse. If the wrong medicine is prescribed, it could negatively interact with the illness or your symptoms and make your situation worse overall.

Remember, doctors have a duty to provide a standard of care that is equal to another doctor of their skill level. If a second opinion finds a life-threatening condition that your other physician did not, you should consider discussing your case with an experienced medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible.

If you were the victim of medical negligence, we can fight for you. To discuss your case with a Florida medical malpractice attorney from Gunn Law Group P.A. don’t hesitate to call 813-228-7070 or send us an email.