Medical outcomes are never entirely certain. However, competent hospitals and doctors do everything that they reasonably can to minimize the risk of an adverse result.
In other words, mistakes can happen — especially with complex, dangerous conditions such as heart attacks. However, if an injury results from incompetence or negligence, that is another story. Here are three mistakes that might indicate medical malpractice.
1. Misdiagnosis
Misdiagnosis of heart attacks could lead to serious injury or death. It is a fact that heart attacks present similar symptoms to anxiety and other less immediately dangerous conditions. However, a competent care provider should take every reasonable precaution when there is a possibility that a patient is having a heart attack.
2. Failing to diagnose
Another way that healthcare providers might display negligence is by failing to diagnose a serious condition. This might happen when doctors completely fail to recognize the warning signs of diseases. This could include cardiac conditions, but might also include the conditions that contribute to the risk of heart attack.
3. Partial diagnosis
A partial diagnosis is probably one of the hardest forms of diagnostic error for a non-medical professional to understand. In most cases, a heart attack is not just a heart attack. It is a condition with a specific, scientific definition.
Doctors need to define these conditions well; their precision could affect the treatment outcome. Similarly, it is often important to find the cause of heart attacks. For example, it could save a life to recognize that a heart attack is coming from a drug interaction.
Heart attacks often happen suddenly, but many other types of diseases also could lead to unnecessary injury if diagnostic problems occur.
