Those in Oregon who have children likely find themselves, at one time or another, seriously concerned for their child’s health. Though many of these instances are just a parent being overprotective, it is always best to have a medical condition examined by a medical professional. When a doctor tells a parent that their child is fine, it may come with a sigh of relief. Yet, sometimes doctors are wrong, and it can have a serious impact on an innocent child’s health.
A recently filed lawsuit helps illustrate just how damaging a doctor’s failure to diagnose can be. In that case, a boy’s parents claim a doctor failed to diagnose his cancer despite having examined him 13 times. The parent’s allege the doctor told them their son had a persistent fever. The doctor apparently also failed to spot or to adequately consider swelling on the child’s buttock, brought to his attention by the parents, which wound up being a sign of slow-growing cancer. Unfortunately, the child was not properly diagnosed until he was taken to another hospital. He then had to undergo painful chemotherapy and has suffered hearing loss.
Being denied an accurate and timely diagnosis can leave a patient with a worsened medical condition. Delayed treatment might even allow the condition to progress to the point of irreversibility, and it may be fatal. Therefore, it is imperative that doctors, nurses and hospitals are held accountable for their mistakes. By doing this, victims may be able to recover their financial losses, ease their non-financial harms, and raise awareness of the importance medical thoroughness.
Perhaps the best way to do this is to file a medical malpractice lawsuit. To win a case, a victim must show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant’s actions or inactions fell below the minimum standard of care, resulting in the victim’s harm. Doing this successfully can be complicated, requiring the testimony of several witnesses and experts as well as the presentation of a mountain of evidence. However, a local Oregon attorney can help a victim handle these aspects so that a victim can feel like his or her case is in competent hands.
Source: The Madison-St. Clair Record, “Parents say doctor failed to timely diagnose son’s cancer,” July 11, 2014