GP Misdiagnosis

Ciara22

Hi, not sure if this topic was brought up yet.

What happens if you are completely misdiagnosed by your GP? Due to my own womens instinct I knew he was wrong and sought a second opinion. Am I entitled to a refund of at least my consultation fee?

tallaght01

Good question. I don't know the answer though.

I guess you don't get a refund if your lawyer fails to keep you out of jail.

Also, "misdiagnosis" may not be a true reflection of the situation. A GP can only work with the information presented to them, along with their clinical findings. If that information doesn't add up to the condition, then he or she may have been in the right to come to the conclusion that they reached.

For eg, I saw a kid in clinic the other day. His mum is convinced he has "a bowel blockage". He has absoloutely no signs of this. She wants an x-ray, and I've refused. She's told me her mother's instinct is as useful as my clinical skills for her child. She stormed out of clinic and says she'll go private to get a scan from someone else.

Now, the kid has a one in a million chance of having a bowel blockage. I'm pretty certain he's just constipated. But a group of my peers would, I'm sure, agree I was right not to x-ray the kid. In which case, i would have made a misdiagnosis, but i wouldn't neccesarily have been in the wrong.

I'm sure that makes no sense lol

Ciara22

I see what youre saying.

However, I had all the classic symptoms of this illness, which I presented to him, and he still diagnosed me with something else. (Symptoms of both illnesses are not alike at all)

The second doctor was shown these same symptoms the next day and told me the other doctor was wrong. Im sticking with the second one!

eth0_

So basically you're only happy because the 2nd doctor gave you the diagnosis you wanted to hear?

As a matter of interest, what were the symptoms and the diagnoses?

Tree

i don't suppose anyone wants to hear that gp's are only human and can make the same mistakes as the rest of us

NUTLEY BOY

Ciara22 wrote: »

Hi, not sure if this topic was brought up yet.

What happens if you are completely misdiagnosed by your GP? Due to my own womens instinct I knew he was wrong and sought a second opinion. Am I entitled to a refund of at least my consultation fee?

On a very strict view you are entitled to a refund on the theoretical grounds of breach of contract ! What is the breach ? Failure to make a correct diagnosis. However, this is not a complete answer.......

Doctors have a legal duty of care to their patients. The basic requirement is that a doctor should bring as much care and skill to bear in the practice of medicine as it is reasonable to expect. This is not an absolute duty.

Wrong diagnosis or failure to diagnose does not automatically equal an act of negligence. Medical science is not always that precise and the law will not always hold a doctor to an unreasonably high duty of care.

A lot will depend on the circumstances of a case. If the failure to diagnose was a real howler then the doctor will have no answer. Conversely, if the doctor took all reasonable care in dealing with the patient there should be no liability.

Consider the policy point that would arise if doctors were to be judged by such a strict and virtually unrealistic standard. Every doctor would be required to execute every conceivable diagnostic procedure in creation. That would probably make no difference in many cases, waste huge resources and create hostages to fortune in the sense that all due diligence might still fail to find the problem.

IMHO forget about your previous GP and your consultation fee. It can always be argued that you did receive some service for which partial consideration is payable. If you are not confident in or happy about your GP change practice.

Copper

Consider the policy point that would arise if doctors were to be judged by such a strict and virtually unrealistic standard. Every doctor would be required to execute every conceivable diagnostic procedure in creation. That would probably make no difference in many cases, waste huge resources and create hostages to fortune in the sense that all due diligence might still fail to find the problem

True, and if I was a GP and I knew I had to diagnose correctly 100% of the time I would just take my consultation fee and refer you to a consultant. Much easier and safer for me, but not necessarily best for the patient.

Would I be right in thinking doctors have to work on the basis of probabilities, heres the symptoms - you most likely have x,y or z ailment? And if it turns out you don't have x,y or z, its not necessarily a mistake by the doctor. He is wrong in his diagnosis, but it might not be a mistake -it was reasonable for him to think it was x,y or z because of the symptoms presented?

Traumadoc

Interesting article in the New England Journal of Medicine this week , stating that 1-2% of tumours in the future will be medical radiation induced ( CT scans).

CT scanning has increased dramatically over the past 20 years and many CTs were ordered for defensive reasons. Damned if you do. Damned if you dont!