South Carolina Lawyer Blog
Medical mistakes can change the entire course of a person’s life . . . and the lives of his or her family members as well. Unfortunately, misdiagnosis is one of the most common types of medical mistakes, affecting thousands of persons each year. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, almost 40 percent of patients who unexpectedly had to return to their primary care doctor—for whatever malady–did so because they had initially been misdiagnosed.
A missed diagnosis or misdiagnosis can run the gamut, from mistaking a heart attack for heartburn to misreading an ultrasound. Both men and women are vulnerable, trusting that their medical caregivers will hold to the highest standards of the profession but sometimes being the victim of negligence and malpractice. This being said, however, it is true that women have unique health issues: reproductive difficulties; childbirth injuries; cervical and ovarian cancer; breast cancer.