Doctors in Texas are meant to diagnose patients accurately, determine how best to provide treatment, and act accordingly. While this is the ideal scenario, the reality is that there are often mistakes made that can lead to delayed treatment. The wrong diagnosis, especially when it is misdiagnosed cancer or a failure to diagnose cancer, can be deadly. People who have suffered a worsening of their medical problems due to this level of mistake on the part of a medical professional or families who have lost a loved one need to be cognizant of their right to file a lawsuit to be compensated.
A 27-year-old woman received a diagnosis of stage three colorectal cancer after having been misdiagnosed with hemorrhoids for nine months. She had blood in her stool and pain in her intestines for a year prior to being diagnosed with hemorrhoids. As she received treatment, the pain was ongoing. She returned to the doctor and got the cancer diagnosis. Doctors are increasingly misdiagnosing colon cancer in people who are younger than 50 because of the perception that it generally hits those above that age.
One Texas doctor who works in oncology states that he has seen 10 patients younger than age 50 who have colon cancer. Colon cancer is the third highest occurring cancer in new cases in the U.S. and the second leading cause of death. The American Cancer Society states that approximately 11,000 people received a colon cancer diagnosis in 2013 with 4,000 under age 40. Doctors claim that since the statistics of people who under age 50 who get colon cancer is so low that it is frequently misdiagnosed as something else.
People who are having a medical problem and go to see a doctor only to be misdiagnosed can suffer worse issues than they originally would have. If it is a life-threatening disease like cancer a doctor who makes the mistake should be held accountable. To fail to detect cancer is an egregious mistake and people who have been victimized need to understand their rights to seek compensation with help from a qualified lawyer.
Source: fox4beaumont.com, “Fox 4 investigates: Colon cancer in the younger generation,” Simone Braithwaite, May 9, 2017
