The following is a guest blog from Dallas –based Rasansky Law Firm:
Failure to Treat is a Form of Medical Malpractice
Is a failure to treat a condition a case of medical malpractice? According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, U.S. healthcare can actually contribute to poor health. Consider some of these alarming statistics. In the U.S., there are 12,000 patients that die because of unnecessary surgery. There are 7,000 patients that die because of medication errors. Furthermore, 20,000 patients die because of other errors and 80,000 infections occur because of treatment.
With so many expensive errors being made on a yearly basis it’s no wonder that doctors are often hesitant to order any medical treatment that isn’t absolutely required. However, this does not make the failure to treat a condition acceptable. Doctors have been given a responsibility: to examine for the threat of disease and to take prompt action when discovering its presence. The doctor is not expected to save a person’s life, not from a legal standpoint. But he does owe the patient an acceptable standard of care that has been set by top-performing doctors in this field. The doctor should not be hesitant to perform his duty according to the standards set by her own industry. This is the only obligation, and such model of conduct if followed will not expose the doctor to the threat of medical malpractice.
However, the failure to diagnose and the failure to treat a disease in its early stages is indeed a major oversight. It is a costly mistake for both the patient and the doctor when this happens. For example, cancer can sometimes be successfully removed when a doctor and patient agree to prompt diagnosis and surgical or radiation treatment. In fact, this story from Fox News actually suggests that the parents of a patient who willfully did not seek out medical treatment for their sick child (a sickness that could have been treated and typically had a 95 percent treatment success rate) may have broken the law.
Indeed, when a doctor fails to live up to his responsibility and there is a failure to treat a condition early on, the patient’s life is needlessly risked. Most patients have to be subjected to much harsher and riskier treatment for advanced levels of diseases. In fact, if some diseases or symptoms that appear to be related to a disease are ignored it can result in wrongful death.
Failure to treat disease can involve any of these specific shortcomings:
- Failing to perform medical tests
- Failing to treat a known medical condition
- Failing to refer a patient to other specialist
- Failing to advise a patient of all medical options
- Failing to treat a patient because she has no insurance
- Failing to recognize and treat heart emergency symptoms in the ER
The Merck Online Medical Library states clearly the standard quality of care when it comes to cancer diagnosis: “[Examinations] should be part of a routine checkup; more frequent examinations may be needed for people at high risk for developing skin cancer.”
If there has been a failure to treat your condition by a doctor and your medical ailments have become worse because of that mistake, then you may be entitled to compensation. Contact the Rasansky Law Firm at 1-800-ATTORNEY. Medical malpractice is never your fault, not when it’s your trust that has been violated.
The personal injury attorneys of Rasansky Law Firm have extensive experience handling a broad range of cases including medical malpractice, vehicle accidents, birth injury and much more. In a world of WE, US, and I, Rasansky Law Firm is committed to the revolutionary idea of YOU.
