You are suffering from chest pains and a pain in your left arm.
You make the appointment to see your doctor.
Your doctor begins to question you about your chest pains and asks whether you have pain anywhere else.
For some reason you fail to speak up and tell the doctor that you also have pain in your left arm.
In your mind you do not see the importance of telling your doctor everything that is going on with your body.
For many people the above fact scenario is how they view going to their doctor’s visit.
The issue with this is that failing to speak up and tell your doctor all of your complaints can lead to the wrong diagnosis of your medical condition.
This is in part due to how doctors get to the proper diagnosis.
Doctors are taught to use a differential diagnosis to get to the right diagnosis for a patient.
What this means is that the doctor will not only be reviewing your medical history, but he or she will interview you as to your complaints.
The reason the doctor is doing this is because they are using your complaints to help them get to the proper diagnosis.
Either in their mind or on paper the doctor is making a list of the diagnosis which fits your complaints.
The doctor will then run tests to confirm or rule out the suspected diagnosis.
So understanding this process it should be easy for you to see why it is important for you to be truthful with your doctor regarding your complaints.
If you know that you were truthful with your doctor regarding your complaints and history and your diagnosis was missed, this is what we invite you to do if your matter happened in Maryland.
Pick up the phone and give us a call.
It costs you nothing to give us a call.
We can be reached at 301-850-4832.
We answer Maryland medical malpractice questions like yours all the time and we would be glad to listen to your story.