What can I do about a misdiagnosis?
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What can I do about a misdiagnosis?
I fell on my elbows and went to see the doctor they X-rayed and said its just contusions take aspirin ice them for 2 weeks you’ll be fine. However, its been a year and I never regained full strength in either elbow. So I recently saw an orthopedic about shoulder issues Im having and told him about my elbow injuries so he pulled up my elbow X-rays and said what the first doctor told me were calcium deposits were actually bone fragments and now he wants me to do ultra-sound to further look into the matter.
Asked on April 16, 2019 under Malpractice Law, California
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 5 years ago | Contributor
Whether there was malpractice depends upon whether the first doctor you went to should have been able to tell that the "calcium deposits" were actually bone fragments. If the ordinary reasonable doctor, trained to current medical standards, should have been able to tell those were bone fragments--or at least be aware that they might be something requiring further investigation, so that he or she would have ordered additional tests--then it would have been malpractice. Only if a reasonable doctor could have thought, viewing the X-rays and listening to what happened and your symptoms, that these were calcium deposits, would this not be malpractice. Malpractice is when a doctor is more careless than a reasonable doctor should be.
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