Jacksonville Legal Blog

Accurate diagnosis of medical conditions is among the most important parts of a doctor's job, but misdiagnoses happen all the time in Florida and nationwide. It's a problem that can affect anyone, but women might be more likely to be misdiagnosed according to some studies. Conditions that doctors and other health professionals could miss when women come in include heart disease, cancer, irritable bowel syndrome and fibromyalgia.

The biggest killer of women in the United States is heart disease, but it is often misdiagnosed because it has similar symptoms to other conditions. Symptoms of heart disease include nausea, shortness of breath, chest pain, fatigue, palpitations and dizziness. Some of these are also symptoms of anxiety or heartburn, so doctors sometimes misdiagnose heart disease as one of these conditions. Cancer, too, is often misdiagnosed as a less serious condition like an infection. A doctor's misdiagnosis of breast cancer, throat cancer, ovarian cancer or bladder cancer can have serious consequences by delaying proper treatment.

Though 40 percent of people in Florida and across the nation name health care as one of their top political concerns, accidental patient deaths due to medical errors are often an ignored issue in elections. A study done by John Hopkins Medicine estimates that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for 250,000 deaths each year.

Over 18 years ago, the issue drew national attention when the Institute of Medicine released a report that estimated that 100,000 people died each year due to medical errors. New analysis reveals that this number is actually larger, and 10 percent of the people who die in the United States each year die as a result of medical errors. These errors cost healthcare providers $8,000 per each inpatient hospital admission. According to a study published in Health Affairs, 35 percent of nurses don't believe that their workplaces are safe and that not enough has been done to prevent medical errors from occurring. Topping these errors are diagnostic errors, which affect 12 million patients per year; four million of these patients suffer serious harm as a result of a diagnostic error.

Medical residents in Florida and across the United States may be making serious errors when it comes to writing prescriptions for children. A study that was presented at an American Academy of Pediatrics conference revealed that residents who write pediatric prescriptions often make serious errors that could lead to the incorrect dosage of a medication being given to the child.

Researchers from the University of Toledo College of Medicine carried out the study. They looked at the first 10 prescriptions written by 270 residents. The study disclosed that the most common error was writing "as needed" on the prescription without providing a reason. Giving an incorrect duration of the treatment or medication was the next most common error. In prescriptions that required dosage based on weight, 98 percent of the prescriptions didn't note the patient's weight or the weight-based dosage information. The errors were found more often in handwritten prescriptions versus electronic ones. The study also found that junior and senior residents also made the same types of errors.

Getting the right treatment is important for children in Florida who are diagnosed with brain cancer. One type of cancer called CNS-PNET is traditionally diagnosed by the locations of the tumors in the brain and by looking at tumors under a microscope.

A study that was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology revealed that the traditional diagnosis method is flawed. The researchers were interested in using a new technology to confirm the diagnoses of children who had been diagnosed with CNS-PNET called methylation. They used methylation on samples of the tumors taken from 31 children who had been enrolled in a large clinical trial of an aggressive treatment for CNS-PNET patients.