Time may or may not heal all wounds. Time definitely causes most of the medical misdiagnosis claims in Florida.
According to one study, doctors must work about 25 hours a day to give proper attention to each of their 2,500 patients, a standard patient load in most cases. Therefore, doctors clearly take lots of shortcuts. Gone are the days when doctors routinely researched difficult diagnosis questions or consulted with colleagues about them. There’s simply no time. Patient interaction is another shortcut. Most doctors listen to most patients for about seven seconds before they redirect or interrupt them. No one can obtain any meaningful information about patient symptoms in that amount of time.
In contrast, the diligent Port St. Lucie misdiagnosis lawyers at Freidin Brown, P.A. never take shortcuts. Instead, we take as much time as necessary to build your negligence claim from the ground up. This attention to detail and meticulous preparation is more time consuming at first. However, our diligence pays off for our clients, in the form of maximum compensation for their serious injuries. To us, such an outcome makes all the preparation worthwhile.
Duty of Care
Very few professionals in Florida have a fiduciary duty, which is the highest level of legal responsibility in the law. Doctors are among these professionals.
Under the law, many nonprofessionals, including most property owners, have some margin for error. Not every mistake is negligence, or a lack of care, even if that mistake causes injury. For example, if Ed spills a drink on the floor and Tom, who is following him, slips and falls on the wet spot, the property owner isn’t responsible for Tom’s damages. The owner couldn’t have known about the spill and cleaned it up that quickly.
A fiduciary duty is different. Doctors basically have no margin for error. That’s because they have extensive training, education, and experience. Their patients have almost none of these things. So, patients depend almost entirely on doctors for all their medical needs.
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Breach of Care
We mentioned lack of communication as a cause of medical negligence. Lack of information might be an even bigger cause.
Their fiduciary duty requires doctors to always order a full battery of diagnostic tests, even if they believe they know what’s wrong and even if they’re afraid the insurance company will not pay for the tests. Doctors cannot rely exclusively on their instincts in this area. They definitely cannot make financial gain more important than patient health and safety.
This duty also requires doctors, instead of nurses, patient care technicians, or other professionals, to interpret these results. Non-doctors are qualified to perform a wide range of medical tests. Interpreting diagnostic test results isn’t one of them. It does not matter how experienced the non-doctor may be.
Frequently, performing the proper tests and interpreting the results is the easy part. The hard part is often putting these results into practice. Many doctors are so experienced that they over-rely on their training. They dismiss diagnosis red flags and go with their guts. Once again, this behavior clearly violates the duty of care.
Damages in a medical negligence case usually include money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. A Port St. Lucie misdiagnosis lawyer can also obtain additional punitive damages in most of these cases.
Count on a Dedicated St. Lucie County Lawyer
Injury victims are entitled to substantial compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced Port St. Lucie misdiagnosis lawyer, contact Freidin Brown, P.A. Virtual, home, and hospital visits are available.
