Every day, people entrust their most precious asset – their health – to persons they believe are thorough, caring, professional healthcare providers. That trust, however, does not come without risk. As indicated by a landmark report in 1999 by the Institute of Medicine, as many as 98,000 U.S. deaths occur each year as a result of preventable medical errors – errors due to negligence.
What is Medical Malpractice?
Medical malpractice is professional negligence by act or omission by a healthcare provider in which care provided deviates from accepted standards of practice and causes injury to the patient. This includes:
- failure to diagnose and delayed diagnosis
- birth injuries
- medication errors
- surgical mistakes
Failure to Diagnose & Delayed Diagnosis
The oversight or delay of diagnosis of a serious condition or disease almost always leads to severe complications and often death. Misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis can lead to reduced life expectancy, more invasive, aggressive and costly treatment, loss of income due to time spent receiving treatment, and in the worst case, premature death.
Hance & Srinivasan is especially experienced with medical malpractice cases involving the failure to diagnose or the misdiagnosis of the following:
Breast Cancer
Here are the facts:
- someone dies of breast cancer every 14 minutes
- there is more than a 97% five-year survival rate when localized breast cancer is caught before it spreads to other parts of the body
- after skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women in the United States
- an estimated 200,000 women and 2,000 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the United States
- a lump was detected in a physical breast examine, but did not show up on a mammogram
- a lump was or was not detected in a physical examination, but the mammogram or ultrasound was misread
- a biopsy is taken, but misread
- a biopsy was taken, but missed the mass in question
If you or someone you love has been misdiagnosed or received a delayed diagnosis of breast cancer that has resulted in severe, unnecessary complications or death, please contact Hance & Srinivasan to discuss the individual nature of your situation.
Also, we want everyone to be informed about the dangers of breast cancer and encourage you to visit BreastCancer.org to learn more about risk factors, symptoms and testing for this deadly disease.
Lung Cancer
Lung disease is the #3 killer in America, responsible for one in six deaths, and yet it is one of the most commonly misdiagnosed types of cancer. With delayed detection, the cancer has more time to grow, thereby increasing the difficulty of treatment or it may progress to an untreatable stage.
Mistakes that have been made by doctors or healthcare professionals that have led to a misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis of lung cancer include:
- lung cancer symptoms are mistaken for another condition
- necessary tests (MRIs, biopsies, X-rays) not performed
- poor assessment of test results
- tumor misdiagnosed as benign
- non-smokers are under diagnosed
If you or someone you love has been misdiagnosed or received a delayed diagnosis of lung cancer that has resulted in severe, unnecessary complications or death, please contact Hance & Srinivasan to discuss the individual nature of your situation.
We believe it is important to be informed about lung cancer, and we encourage you to visit the National Cancer Institute to learn more about risk factors, symptoms, and testing for this deadly disease.
Colon and Rectal Cancer
In 2008, colon and rectal cancer (colorectal cancer) claimed 49,960 lives in the United States. Not counting skin cancers, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer found in men and women in this country. Although it has one of the highest cure rates when caught early (93% at stage one) it also is one of the most misdiagnosed diseases.
When a misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis is made and the cancer advances, the patient faces extensive surgeries (including ileostomy) and intense chemotherapy that can have debilitating effects on the overall quality of life or even death. Misdiagnosed or delayed diagnosis of colorectal cancer has occurred when healthcare providers have:
- failed to refer patients on for Familial Adenomatous Polyposis screening (FAP)
- misinterpreted results or mixed them up with other patients’ results
- failed to properly evaluate patients’ complaints of rectal bleeding
If you or someone you love has been misdiagnosed or received a delayed diagnosis of colorectal cancer that has resulted in severe, unnecessary complications or death, please contact Hance & Srinivasan to discuss the individual nature of your situation.
We believe it is important to be informed about colorectal cancer, and we encourage you to visit the National Cancer Institute to learn more about risk factors, symptoms, and testing for this deadly disease.
Heart Attack
The statistics surrounding heart disease and heart attacks in the United States are alarming:
- a heart attack occurs about every 20 seconds
- one heart attack death occurs approximately every minute
- almost 14 million Americans have a history of heart attack or angina
- chest discomfort in the center of the chest lasting more than a few minutes, or that goes away and comes back. This can feel like uncomfortable pressure, squeezing, fullness, or pain
- upper body pain and discomfort, such as in one or both arms, the back, neck, jaw or stomach
- shortness of breath with or without chest discomfort
- breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea, or lightheadedness
- symptoms are ignored or misinterpreted by a healthcare provider
- a healthcare provider fails to order needed tests
If you or someone you love has been misdiagnosed or received a delayed diagnosis of heart attack that has resulted in severe, unnecessary complications or death, please contact Hance & Srinivasan to discuss the individual nature of your situation.
The American Heart Association is a national voluntary health agency to help reduce disability and death from cardiovascular diseases and stroke.
Appendicitis
Appendicitis is the inflammation of the appendix, a small pouch attached to the large intestine. It is one of the most common causes of emergency abdominal surgery in the United States and one of the most misdiagnosed health conditions.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the rate of misdiagnosis in certain populations of patients may be as high as 40%. Older persons and woman are more likely to be misdiagnosed than men and are more likely to have unnecessary surgery to remove a normal, healthy appendix; a result of careless history taking and physical examination.
Most delayed diagnoses or misdiagnoses of appendicitis are the result of the following:
- careless history taking
- careless physical examination
- failure to perform follow-through testing (abdominal CT scan, abdominal ultrasound, diagnostic laparoscopy)
We believe it is important to be informed about the dangers of appendicitis, and we encourage you to visit the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearing House to learn more about risk factors, symptoms, and testing for this deadly health condition.
Medication Errors
According to a 2006 report by the Institute of Medicine, at least 1.5 million people in the United States are sickened, injured, or killed each year by errors in prescribing, dispensing, and taking medications. Prescription errors can occur in pharmacies, hospitals, doctor offices, nursing homes, and in the home.
Common errors include:
- disregard of how prescriptions could interact dangerously with other drugs a patient is taking
- prescribing too much of a medication
- not considering the age and weight of a patient
- disregard of allergies
- nurses dispensing the wrong oral medications or putting the wrong medication — or the wrong dose — in an intravenous drip
- pharmacists dispensing the wrong dosage or wrong medication
- mistaken or similar drug names
Unfortunately, these types of negligent mistakes — whether by a prescribing doctor, a nurse, or a pharmacist — can lead to injury and even death of patients. Understaffing in pharmacies and hospitals often create circumstances that lend themselves to the commission of errors.
If you or someone you love has suffered an injury, long-term health complications or death from a medication error, please contact Hance & Srinivasan to discuss the individual nature of your situation.
We believe it is important to be informed about how medication errors occur and how consumers can take steps to reduce the possibility of it happening to them. For more information, visit the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for additional information related to medication error.
Surgical Mistakes
The most common surgical mistakes are known as wrong-side/wrong-site, wrong-procedure, and wrong-patient adverse events (WSPEs). One study indicates that as many as 1300 to 2700 WSPEs occur annually in the United States. WSPEs can have devastating effects on patients, leaving them in pain, scarred, disfigured, and/or impaired. In some cases WPSEs have even caused death.
Factors that contribute to the occurrence of WPSEs include:
- fatigue and haste
- confusing patients with similar names or similar surgeries
- similar site of surgery
- procedure changes
- break down in communication and teamwork
- failure of existing safety checks
- surgical technique
- judgment errors
- inattention to detail
If you or someone you love has suffered pain, long-term health complications or death from a surgical error, please contact Hance & Srinivasan to discuss the individual nature of your situation.
At Hance & Srinivasan, we want you to be informed about the risks of surgical errors. We encourage you to review “20 Tips to Prevent Medical Errors” provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources.