Claims for Failure to Diagnose Cancer or Other Illness

At the law firm of Stephen J. Gordon & Associates, we advise personal injury and wrongful death clients about their legal alternatives in situations involving a doctor’s misdiagnosis of a serious medical condition or failure to diagnose cancer or other illness in time for effective medical treatment. If you feel that you or someone in your family is a victim of misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis on the part of a physician, contact a knowledgeable medical malpractice lawyer at either of our offices in Worcester and Scottsdale.

Stephen Gordon’s experience with complex medical malpractice litigation can represent an important advantage for you in your efforts to recover compensation for the negligent diagnosis mistakes of a physician. In most cases, it is not enough to show that a doctor missed the signs of a serious injury or illness, especially in situations where an accurate diagnosis was eventually made. We must also prove that the failure to diagnose cancer or other condition resulted in injury to the plaintiff.

As a result, many misdiagnosis cases turn on issues of causation. In other words, did the doctor’s failure to identify the health problem at a particular time make any practical difference to the patient’s outcome? A defendant physician’s malpractice insurer might argue that a malignancy was far enough advanced at the time of the initial examination that the patient had no realistic chance for effective treatment anyway. Depending on what our own medical experts tell us, we can try to prove the opposite: that the failure to diagnose the cancer at an early opportunity played a critical role in the patient’s subsequent complications or death.

Similar problems of causation and proof can come up in misdiagnosis cases where the basis of the claim was a failure to order tests, a misinterpretation of x-rays or lab results, or a poor understanding of a patient’s symptoms. With more than 43 years of medical malpractice trial experience, Stephen Gordon knows how to work with qualified health care professionals whose expert opinion in support of your claims will be essential to proving your case under both Massachusetts law.

For more information about our ability to represent your interests effectively in a case of misdiagnosis or unreasonably delayed diagnosis, contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney at the law firm of Stephen J. Gordon & Associates.