Damian2016:
Source: DoctorsHub Nigeria
​
On the 23rd of February, the Nigerian social media became innundate with the unfortunate news of Rukayya, a 4-year girl from Zaria, who got had her leg chopped off because the first hospital that had attended to her when she was taken there misdiagnosed her condition and instituted a treatment on her that resulted in complications. When eventually she was referred to the university teaching hospital, her condition had detoriated and her leg, which had been gangrenous from the botched mistreatment had to go so as to save her life. Rukayya's case, a very tragic one, is just one out of thousands of other similar cases where patients have been grossly misdiagnosed and subsequently made to suffer unjustly.

As expected, the tragic and disturbing news was met with public outcry and calls for the culprits to be apprehended and swiftly sanctioned. But really, what is the position of the law on the issue of misdiagnosis? What does the code of medical ethics say regarding a misdiagnosis? Can patients institute legal actions against doctors on the grounds of a missed diagnosis?


YES, THEY CAN...at least there is a legal provision for that.


But then, just before I explain the nuts and bolts of it, let me quickly make this crucial points:

-The majority of doctors have the best intentions and interest of their patients at heart. It is our desperate desire to see that patients get the best treatment and are able to get their lives back on track as quickly as possible. Most doctors strive to practise medicine according to the guiding principles of the code of medical ethics.

- Secondly, no profession is above mistakes. There are honest mistakes made in all fields of life. It is no different in the medical profession. Medicine recognizes the possiblity of these honest errors and as such, it is not uncommon for doctors to be occasionally pardoned after it has been established that any other doctor of requisite competence would also have made that mistake.


With that said, when and how exactly can one institute legal action against erring doctors who have been found culpable of gross medical negligence? What are the mechanisms that ensure the success of such a legal action? What must the plaintiff (patient) prove, beyond reasonable doubt, to be able to secure a win?

Truth be told: proving a case of misdiagnosis is a herculean task (no be beans, my broda). Before anyone can successfully sue his/her doctor for misdiagnosing him or her, it must first be incontrovertibly established that medical negligence was the result of the missed diagnosis and much more.

What does this mean?


Let me explain.....

Medical negligence is an act or omission (failure to act) by a medical professional that deviates from the ACCEPTED medical standard of care. Now, if you and your lawyer can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the said doctor is guilty of medical negligence, which eventually resulted in your been misdiagnosed, then you have got a case. But again, having a case doesn't mean you are going to win when you go to court. To win in a court of law, you must, after establishing medical negligence, be able to prove the following,


1. That what you are calling a misdiagnosis is actually a misdiagnosis:
Because a lot of medical conditions have their symptoms overlapping, this can also be a tricky one to prove. There are circumstances where any doctor, using his discretion under peculiar cases such as an emergency, can honestly make the mistake of diagnosing a condition as another condition because the two share extremely similar features. There is what is known as differential diagnosis in medicine. Differential diagnosis is the sum total of all the likely conditions that may be causing a patients symptoms. For example, severe chest pain can be caused by heart disease, stomach ulcer, acute pancreatitis, and a host of other conditions. These conditions are called differential diagnosis. Now, a doctor would usually eliminate all the impossibles and narrow the diagnosis to only the possibles and most likely of all. The process of elimination very often requires rigorous tests and examinations.

Often times, the patients are too indigent to afford the series of tests the doctor has outlined. When this happens, the doctor has little or northing to do than to use his own descretion, based on the symptoms and the few tests conducted to reach a diagnosis. Under such circumstances, it becomes very difficult to sue a doctor.....except his diagnosis and the real are so wide apart and have no correlation whatsoever in both symptoms tests findings.


2. That you were harmed or injured as result:
Can you prove beyond reasonable doubt that by misdiagnosing you, the doctor caused you harm or suffering? If yes, then good luck. You can slam him or her with litigations! If not, your case will be thrown out of court. What do I mean? If you come to the court and complain that a doctor misdiagnosed your migraine for something else, you must show that the misdiagnosis has caused you injury or suffering. It goes beyond proving a misdiagnosis ....you must also prove that the misdiagnosis caused you some harm. Without this, you cannot be able to win the case. In the case of poor Rukayya, she suffered serious and permanent injury, and as such, she has a watertight case against those reckless doctors should her parents decide to sue.


3. That the misdiagnosis resulted in over-treatment and payment of unnecessary medical fees:
If a doctor misdiagnosed a seemingly mild and easily treatable condition as something serious or life-threatening, like say, cancer, and you are subjected to chemotherapy or radiotherapy or some surgical procedure, you can sue that doctor if the medical fees incurred are disproportionately higher than the the fees for the missed diagnosis or if during the course of treating you, complications developed (e.g hairloss from chemotherapy, loss of a body organ or part from an unnecessary surgery).

NB: the issue of misdiagnosis is a very delicate one, especially in developing countries like Nigeria where the health system is in shambles and doctors are expected to work like magicians when diagnosing cases. For example, what can a doctor do in an emergency where the patients are too indigent to afford the necessary tests he or she has been asked to do? If a doctor was to use his discretion under such peculiar conditions, would he or she still be found wanting? Except our health system is made to work, the issue of misdiagnosis will always remain a difficult one to prove.

With that said, there are very clear instances when a doctor errs as result of gross negligence (e.g he or she was drunk while reaching a diagnosis) and not necessarily due to lack of medical facilities or resources for enabling his/her accurate diagnosis. For such a doctor, the his/her negligence can be found actionable by a competent court of law.


Also read, "THE TWO TIMES DOCTORS CAN SUE THEIR PATIENTS" via this http://doctorshub.com.ng/2017/02/28/the-two-times-doctors-can-sue-their-patients/.


Thanks for reading!



http://doctorshub.com.ng/2017/03/06/can-i-sue-my-doctor-for-misdiagnosing-me/
Posts like this one should always make FP! Very informative. Thanks OP

Damian2016:
Source: DoctorsHub Nigeria
​
On the 23rd of February, the Nigerian social media became innundate with the unfortunate news of Rukayya, a 4-year girl from Zaria, who got had her leg chopped off because the first hospital that had attended to her when she was taken there misdiagnosed her condition and instituted a treatment on her that resulted in complications. When eventually she was referred to the university teaching hospital, her condition had detoriated and her leg, which had been gangrenous from the botched mistreatment had to go so as to save her life. Rukayya's case, a very tragic one, is just one out of thousands of other similar cases where patients have been grossly misdiagnosed and subsequently made to suffer unjustly.

As expected, the tragic and disturbing news was met with public outcry and calls for the culprits to be apprehended and swiftly sanctioned. But really, what is the position of the law on the issue of misdiagnosis? What does the code of medical ethics say regarding a misdiagnosis? Can patients institute legal actions against doctors on the grounds of a missed diagnosis?


YES, THEY CAN...at least there is a legal provision for that.


But then, just before I explain the nuts and bolts of it, let me quickly make this crucial points:

-The majority of doctors have the best intentions and interest of their patients at heart. It is our desperate desire to see that patients get the best treatment and are able to get their lives back on track as quickly as possible. Most doctors strive to practise medicine according to the guiding principles of the code of medical ethics.

- Secondly, no profession is above mistakes. There are honest mistakes made in all fields of life. It is no different in the medical profession. Medicine recognizes the possiblity of these honest errors and as such, it is not uncommon for doctors to be occasionally pardoned after it has been established that any other doctor of requisite competence would also have made that mistake.


With that said, when and how exactly can one institute legal action against erring doctors who have been found culpable of gross medical negligence? What are the mechanisms that ensure the success of such a legal action? What must the plaintiff (patient) prove, beyond reasonable doubt, to be able to secure a win?

Truth be told: proving a case of misdiagnosis is a herculean task (no be beans, my broda). Before anyone can successfully sue his/her doctor for misdiagnosing him or her, it must first be incontrovertibly established that medical negligence was the result of the missed diagnosis and much more.

What does this mean?


Let me explain.....

Medical negligence is an act or omission (failure to act) by a medical professional that deviates from the ACCEPTED medical standard of care. Now, if you and your lawyer can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the said doctor is guilty of medical negligence, which eventually resulted in your been misdiagnosed, then you have got a case. But again, having a case doesn't mean you are going to win when you go to court. To win in a court of law, you must, after establishing medical negligence, be able to prove the following,


1. That what you are calling a misdiagnosis is actually a misdiagnosis:
Because a lot of medical conditions have their symptoms overlapping, this can also be a tricky one to prove. There are circumstances where any doctor, using his discretion under peculiar cases such as an emergency, can honestly make the mistake of diagnosing a condition as another condition because the two share extremely similar features. There is what is known as differential diagnosis in medicine. Differential diagnosis is the sum total of all the likely conditions that may be causing a patients symptoms. For example, severe chest pain can be caused by heart disease, stomach ulcer, acute pancreatitis, and a host of other conditions. These conditions are called differential diagnosis. Now, a doctor would usually eliminate all the impossibles and narrow the diagnosis to only the possibles and most likely of all. The process of elimination very often requires rigorous tests and examinations.

Often times, the patients are too indigent to afford the series of tests the doctor has outlined. When this happens, the doctor has little or northing to do than to use his own descretion, based on the symptoms and the few tests conducted to reach a diagnosis. Under such circumstances, it becomes very difficult to sue a doctor.....except his diagnosis and the real are so wide apart and have no correlation whatsoever in both symptoms tests findings.


2. That you were harmed or injured as result:
Can you prove beyond reasonable doubt that by misdiagnosing you, the doctor caused you harm or suffering? If yes, then good luck. You can slam him or her with litigations! If not, your case will be thrown out of court. What do I mean? If you come to the court and complain that a doctor misdiagnosed your migraine for something else, you must show that the misdiagnosis has caused you injury or suffering. It goes beyond proving a misdiagnosis ....you must also prove that the misdiagnosis caused you some harm. Without this, you cannot be able to win the case. In the case of poor Rukayya, she suffered serious and permanent injury, and as such, she has a watertight case against those reckless doctors should her parents decide to sue.


3. That the misdiagnosis resulted in over-treatment and payment of unnecessary medical fees:
If a doctor misdiagnosed a seemingly mild and easily treatable condition as something serious or life-threatening, like say, cancer, and you are subjected to chemotherapy or radiotherapy or some surgical procedure, you can sue that doctor if the medical fees incurred are disproportionately higher than the the fees for the missed diagnosis or if during the course of treating you, complications developed (e.g hairloss from chemotherapy, loss of a body organ or part from an unnecessary surgery).

NB: the issue of misdiagnosis is a very delicate one, especially in developing countries like Nigeria where the health system is in shambles and doctors are expected to work like magicians when diagnosing cases. For example, what can a doctor do in an emergency where the patients are too indigent to afford the necessary tests he or she has been asked to do? If a doctor was to use his discretion under such peculiar conditions, would he or she still be found wanting? Except our health system is made to work, the issue of misdiagnosis will always remain a difficult one to prove.

With that said, there are very clear instances when a doctor errs as result of gross negligence (e.g he or she was drunk while reaching a diagnosis) and not necessarily due to lack of medical facilities or resources for enabling his/her accurate diagnosis. For such a doctor, the his/her negligence can be found actionable by a competent court of law.


Also read, "THE TWO TIMES DOCTORS CAN SUE THEIR PATIENTS" via this http://doctorshub.com.ng/2017/02/28/the-two-times-doctors-can-sue-their-patients/.


Thanks for reading!



http://doctorshub.com.ng/2017/03/06/can-i-sue-my-doctor-for-misdiagnosing-me/