Delayed Diagnosis

Doctors sometimes ignore patients’ symptoms, like a lump in the breast, a persistent cough, or pain that just won’t go away. When delays in diagnosis and treatment result in more serious injury or additional treatment, it is medical malpractice.

Common Cases

• Delayed diagnosis of cancer. Lung cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer and other forms of cancer can often be treated successfully if diagnosed early. Unfortunately, diagnosis can be delayed if a physician dismisses the significance of a symptom or if a radiologist fails to properly read an x-ray, CT scan or MRI scan.
• Compartment syndrome is another life-threatening condition with obvious symptoms that are sometimes ignored. Patients with broken limbs or who have undergone arm or leg surgery can have severely swollen muscles that can exert excessive pressure and permanently damage nerves and tissues if not relieved in time.
• Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), also known as Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), is a serious chronic pain syndrome that may be caused by an auto accident, improper positioning during surgery, an improper IV injection, or numerous other ways.
• Other common mis-diagnosis include appendicitis, perforated bowel, meningitis, pulmonary embolism, heart attack or stroke.
  

Actual Case:
$10.731M awarded in Sept. 2002 in Washington.

The Case:
Failure to timely diagnose and treat Jaundice-Kernicterus results in brain injury with Athetoid Cerebral Palsy and severe motor impairment of a newborn boy.

The details:
A healthy newborn baby was discharged from the hospital the day after he was born. He developed jaundice over the next several days. There was a variety of contacts between the parents, doctors and nurses.

The baby’s mother called defendant lactation service for a “breast-feeding problem”. The nurse recorded that the baby was "really jaundiced, lethargic, and fading fast" but did not call a doctor or advise the mother. Instead, she arranged for a second consultation. The second nurse testified that this was the most jaundiced baby she had ever seen, but did not direct the parents to the emergency room (one floor below) or call the baby's doctor. She did not tell the parents that their baby was in jeopardy.

Plaintiffs alleged that the nurses were negligent in their duties. In addition, plaintiffs alleged the hospital was corporately negligent and failed to obtain informed consent.
According to the Oregon Litigation and Arbitration Reports, the jury found that the hospital was negligent and failed to obtain informed consent. It awarded damages of over $10,000,000 to the minor boy, and $665,000 to the parents.