Misdiagnosis Of Heart Attack

With many medical emergencies, prompt treatment can make the difference between a full recovery and catastrophic outcomes.  For example, if first responders stabilize a patient with a spinal injury and quickly administer steroids, they can prevent the injury from leading to paralysis.  Likewise, the symptoms of concussion are usually less severe if the patient goes to a doctor immediately after the acute injury, before a severe headache develops.  Doctors sometimes administer antivirals to patients with influenza, but these drugs are only effective if patients receive them shortly after becoming effective.  Likewise, the best time to get treatment for a cardiovascular event such as heart attack or stroke is when you first start to experience warning signs.  Unfortunately, insufficient access to medical care, and even incorrect assumptions by medical professionals, can lead to doctors failing to realize that the patient sitting in front of them is having a heart attack.  If you are still suffering from ill health after doctors diagnosed your heart attack as something else, contact a Columbia medical malpractice lawyer.

Biases of Physicians and Medical School Curriculum Can Prevent Patients From Getting an Appropriate Diagnosis and Treatment

Every medical resident assigned to work long hours in a hospital emergency, where patients might come in at any moment with any illness or injury, knows how to recognize when someone is having a heart attack, or at least, they think they do.  Unfortunately, their medical education has probably left them with a mental image of a specific patient with specific symptoms, even though there is more variety in the people who suffer heart attacks and the symptoms that bring them to the hospital when they do.  They would expect to diagnose heart attack in a White man above the age of 50; he would come to the hospital complaining of pain or tightness in his chest and, perhaps his left arm and left upper abdomen, and his medical records would show a history of high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

This means that many heart attack patients that doctors see do not fit this profile.  The prevalence of heart attack in Black men under 50 than in White men of similar age.  Likewise, cardiovascular disease, a common cause of heart attack, is the leading cause of death and ill health in women above the age of 65.  Women under the age of 50 have a lower risk of heart attack than men of the same age, but heart attack is more prevalent in young women than previously realized.  In women of any age, heart attack symptoms are more likely to manifest as abdominal pain, instead of or in addition to chest pain, than in men.  Especially in young women, doctors might assume that the symptoms are due to pregnancy or to hormonal changes associated with the menstrual cycle or perimenopause rather than heart attack.  Doctors should perform appropriate tests to rule out a heart attack if the patient is having symptoms that could suggest heart attack; failure to do so is medical malpractice.

Let Us Help You Today

The personal injury lawyers at the Stanley Law Group can help you pursue a medical malpractice claim.  Contact The Stanley Law Group in Columbia, South Carolina or call (803)799-4700 for a free initial consultation.

nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/risk-developing-heart-failure-much-higher-rural-areas-vs-urban

theconversation.com/poor-neighborhoods-health-care-barriers-are-factors-for-heart-disease-risk-in-black-mothers-250591