Most Common ICU Misdiagnoses

There are many types of medical malpractice. Often, we think of malpractice in terms of egregious and horrifying surgical error-wrong site surgery, unnecessary amputation, or surgical implements left inside a patient. Other times, faulty medical devices and implants can lead to serious complications and years of pain and suffering. However, medical malpractice often takes the form of more common, yet no less serious, mistakes and oversights. A misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis may lead to an unnecessary prolonging of an illness or a much more complicated treatment and recovery once an accurate diagnosis is made. In some cases, a missed diagnosis can even be fatal. For example, if a patient goes to the emergency room with chest pains and a physician writes off obvious signs of cardiac arrest as indigestion, the patient could die of a heart attack without appropriate treatment. If a doctor fails to diagnose cancer, by the time an accurate diagnosis is made, the cancer may have spread too far to respond to treatment.

A recent study by Johns Hopkins University reports that approximately 25 percent of all patients who die in hospital intensive care units (ICU) have at least one undiagnosed or misdiagnosed condition. The study, authored by Bradford Winters, an associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, attributes 40,500 adult ICU deaths to unknown medical conditions. These deaths are only ICU deaths; overall, diagnostic error leads to as many as 80,000 hospital deaths annually.

The Johns Hopkins study found the following medical conditions to be the most frequently misdiagnosed conditions:

• Heart attack - often attributed to heartburn, indigestion, gall bladder infection, or pulmonary embolism, a heart attack is damage to the heart resulting from reduced or stopped blood flow
  
• Pulmonary embolism - frequently misdiagnosed as asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, or heart attack, a pulmonary embolism is the sudden blockage of a lung artery, often from a blood clot
  
• Pneumonia - this inflammation of the lungs may be attributed to asthma or tuberculosis; different types of pneumonia require different treatments, so it is important to accurately diagnose not only pneumonia, but the specific strain
  
• Aspergillosis - an allergic reaction to a fungus that grows on dead leaves, this illness can mimic pneumonia, asthma, tuberculosis, or other forms of acute respiratory distress
  
• Abdominal bleeding - any internal bleeding of the stomach, esophagus, small intestine, or colon can cause weakness, dizziness, and a sudden drop in blood pressure; because these symptoms are often already present in ICU patients, it is easy to miss a diagnosis of abdominal bleeding
  

Not every misdiagnosis, missed diagnosis, or delayed diagnosis is a result of medical negligence. Because some illnesses are asymptomatic or do not present symptoms in a typical manner, any physician can make a mistake. If, however, a misdiagnosis occurs because a doctor fails to order appropriate tests, ignores obvious symptoms or a medical condition, or fails to investigate further if a disease presents atypically, medical malpractice may have occurred. Medical malpractice occurs when a patient is harmed because the medical caregiver failed to exercise an appropriate, professional level of care. If you or a loved one has been harmed by a misdiagnosis resulting from substandard care, consult a malpractice lawyer who can help you determine if you have a legitimate claim against the responsible health care provider or medical facility.