What Happens After a Failure to Diagnose Cancer?
A delayed cancer diagnosis can leave people with more than physical and emotional pain. Many also wonder whether they should have done something differently. In this video, we explain why people often blame themselves after a failure to diagnose cancer, particularly in breast cancer cases, and why that guilt is often misplaced. We discuss the trust patients place in their doctors and why medical professionals, not patients, are responsible for making an accurate diagnosis. Watch the video below to learn more.
Video Transcription
It's often the case that we'll get a call from somebody related to a failure to diagnose case. Usually it's a failure to diagnose cancer case, and a lot of times they're tempted to kind of blame themselves for what happened.
We particularly see it in breast cancer cases.
A woman will feel something that feels like it's unnatural in their breast.
And the first thing they think is, "Oh my gosh, I hope it's not cancer."
And for some people, it's really easy to just call up the doctor and to run to the doctor to make sure that it's not cancer.
But for other people, they're so scared of what the answer is going to be, it takes all that they have in them to actually call the doctor up and to go in and to see whether or not they have cancer.
So they go in and they see the doctor, and the doctor does a sonogram.
And the doctor says to them, "Good news. You don't have cancer. Everything's going to be okay."
That's exactly what they wanted to hear.
They're so happy.
They go home.
But that lump doesn't go away, or maybe it feels like it's growing, or something like that.
But they've already been told, "You don't have cancer."
And it was hard enough for them to go to the doctor in the first place to see whether or not they had cancer.
But eventually they do go back again.
And the doctor goes and looks at it and says, "Oh, I'm sorry. They made a mistake before. You, in fact, did have cancer."
It's not unusual in those circumstances for the potential client to blame themselves and say, "If only I had gone back. If only I had been superhuman and not trusted my doctor. I would have caught this earlier."
But don't blame yourself.
You didn't do anything wrong.
The doctor committed the malpractice, not you.
You trusted your doctor, and they let you down.
We particularly see it in breast cancer cases.
A woman will feel something that feels like it's unnatural in their breast.
And the first thing they think is, "Oh my gosh, I hope it's not cancer."
And for some people, it's really easy to just call up the doctor and to run to the doctor to make sure that it's not cancer.
But for other people, they're so scared of what the answer is going to be, it takes all that they have in them to actually call the doctor up and to go in and to see whether or not they have cancer.
So they go in and they see the doctor, and the doctor does a sonogram.
And the doctor says to them, "Good news. You don't have cancer. Everything's going to be okay."
That's exactly what they wanted to hear.
They're so happy.
They go home.
But that lump doesn't go away, or maybe it feels like it's growing, or something like that.
But they've already been told, "You don't have cancer."
And it was hard enough for them to go to the doctor in the first place to see whether or not they had cancer.
But eventually they do go back again.
And the doctor goes and looks at it and says, "Oh, I'm sorry. They made a mistake before. You, in fact, did have cancer."
It's not unusual in those circumstances for the potential client to blame themselves and say, "If only I had gone back. If only I had been superhuman and not trusted my doctor. I would have caught this earlier."
But don't blame yourself.
You didn't do anything wrong.
The doctor committed the malpractice, not you.
You trusted your doctor, and they let you down.