When you feel unlike yourself, you may visit your Missouri physician with the hope that he or she is going to identify the problem and advise you about what to do to fix it. If you are dealing with something serious, your chance of making a recovery depends largely on your doctor’s ability to identify your condition properly and in a timely manner.
Per Johns Hopkins Medicine, diagnostic errors made by doctors have the potential to mean the difference between a patient making a full recovery and that patient succumbing to his or her condition or ailment. This is unfortunate given just how common diagnostic errors are, with about 100,000 Americans either dying or suffering a permanent disability each year due to either missed conditions or delayed diagnoses. Research shows that doctors misdiagnose some conditions more than others, and here are the three conditions today’s physicians most often misdiagnose.
1. Cancer
Doctors diagnose many different types of cancer for many different reasons. However, lung cancer is especially prone to misdiagnosis. Kidney cancer is another often-misdiagnosed form of cancer, with many doctors incorrectly diagnosing it as kidney cancer. The longer cancer goes undetected, the lower the patient’s chances of survival.
2. Vascular events
Studies show that when doctors misdiagnose vascular events, such as strokes, the patient either dies or suffers a serious disability in 22.8% of all instances.
3. Infections
Many doctors also inaccurately diagnose infections. Many doctors misdiagnose sepsis, in particular, and when doctors misdiagnose infections, the patient dies or suffers a serious disability in 13.5% of all instances.
Because medical misdiagnosis happens every day in the United States, it is wise to get a second medical opinion anytime someone diagnoses you with a serious medical condition.