How can a patient know whether or not he or she has grounds for suing a member of the medical profession? The best clue comes in the form of the result; what resulted from the doctor’s error? Did it lead to a prescription for an incorrect treatment, one which was actually used? Did it cause a delay of treatment; did the doctor fail to prescribe a necessary treatment? Patients that can give a “yes” answer to one of those questions would have a reason to sue.
How treatment relates to diagnosis
Obviously, a doctor would have little reason to prescribe a treatment until after a diagnosis of the patient’s condition has been made. For that reason, a misdiagnosis can also become a reason for suing a physician. There are three different situations that match with the type of scenario that has caused various patients to file a lawsuit against their doctor.
In the first situation, the guilty doctor had previously formed a close relationship with one the now disappointed patients. Owing to the existence of that trust, the patient’s doubt concerning a diagnosis seemed weak, when compared to the doctor’s knowledge and experience. The patient’s physician had managed to take advantage of that fact.
In the second scenario the careless practitioner or surgeon did not provide the right treatment properly and as per medical standards. Patients that do not feel capable of judging a doctor’s competence should keep reading; that information will soon be made available within this article.
In the third of the three scenarios, negligence by the treating physician results in injury to the patient. Scenarios two and three are the ones that provide patient with the most frequently-used reasons for suing a member of the medical profession. Now, as promised, more details that relate to the second of the three scenarios.
Clues to a doctor’s lack of competence
A major clue relates to the manner by which a given condition has been diagnosed. Was the diagnostic approach an example of the practice known as differential diagnosis? That is a time-tested approach; doctors that use it reduce their chances for making a mistake. In other words, by using that specific approach, those doctors have displayed at least one measure of their competence.
There are two steps within that same method that entail simple procedures, but actions that could easily include the making of a mistake. For example, in one of the first steps, the physician must make a list of all the probable causes for a given medical problem. If that list failed to include a commonly-accepted cause, the person that made such a list might by declared incompetent. By the same token, if the creator of the list failed to order the proper tests or to seek the opinion of the necessary specialist, then that would be another example of incompetence. When someone is contemplating filing a claim against the medical professional, it is important to know that doing it all on your own is very difficult. That is why the assistance of a personal injury lawyer in Mississauga is needed.
