Failure to Diagnose Aneurysms

Aneurysms are damaged blood vessels that can burst and cause substantial internal bleeding. The symptoms associated with an aneurysm vary depending on where the damaged blood vessel is. For example, brain aneurysms occur in the head, and symptoms can include light sensitivity, nausea, vomiting, seizures, and migraines. Aortic aneurysms occur near the heart, and symptoms can include moderate or serious chest pain, vomiting, nausea, sweating, palpitations, lightheadedness, and increased heart rate. If you are harmed due to a failure to diagnose an aneurysm, the experienced Ocala misdiagnosis attorneys at the Dean Law Firm may be able to help you recover compensation from the doctors or staff members liable for the failure.

There are certain signs and symptoms that suggest an aneurysm. When confronted with these signs and symptoms, a doctor should include an aneurysm as a possibility on a differential diagnosis and test this possibility appropriately. When you show signs of an aneurysm, doctors and nursing staff are supposed to conduct appropriate tests and try to locate any damage to blood vessels that may be caused by an aneurysm. A failure to diagnose an aneurysm may be a result of a doctor or nurse not recognizing or taking note of symptoms that suggest an aneurysm or neglecting to order testing and imaging to further explore your condition.

Sometimes a doctor may discharge you from the ER or hospital prematurely without adequately testing the possibility of an aneurysm or administering the necessary treatment. After a diagnosis is confirmed, the doctor is supposed to immediately administer treatment to avoid the risks associated with aneurysms, such as internal bleeding, heart failure, brain hemorrhages, and subdural hematoma.

A failure to diagnose an aneurysm can have serious consequences, including death. There are numerous ways that an aneurysm may be treated or that the damage may be mitigated if it is diagnosed. One is surgery, which is usually unavoidable. Sometimes the blood vessel may be surgically clipped so that it stops feeding a damaged area. Another procedure that may be used is endovascular coiling, in which a wire is pushed through a catheter into the groin and into the place where the aneurysm is.

If you were harmed by a health care provider's failure to diagnose an aneurysm, you will need to show that the health care provider owed you a professional duty of care, the provider breached the professional duty of care, causation, and actual damages. The prevailing professional standard of care for a particular health care provider in Florida is the degree of skill, care, and treatment that is recognized as acceptable and appropriate by reasonably prudent, similar health care providers.

Your attorney will need to retain a credible and experienced expert in the same field or practice area as the defendant to say that the doctor, nurse, or hospital did not act as most other professionals facing the same symptoms and circumstances would have. Generally, an expert's testimony will establish what the professional duty of care was under the circumstances and indicate what the defendant's actions and omissions were that constituted a breach of that standard. The expert must be able to opine on causation.

If we can establish liability, we should be able to recover compensatory damages on your behalf. Damages may include both economic losses and noneconomic losses. Economic losses are tangible harms, usually documented. They can include medical bills, rehabilitation, lost wages, and replacement services. If a patient dies, economic losses to the family may include funeral and burial expenses. Noneconomic losses include intangible, non-pecuniary losses, such as pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of consortium, lost earning capacity, disfigurement, blindness, and permanent disability.

At the Dean Law Firm, our experienced trial attorneys may be able to sue a health care provider on your behalf if you or a loved one is harmed by a failure to diagnose an aneurysm. We serve patients harmed by misdiagnoses of many health conditions, ranging from cancer to stroke, and their families in Ocala, The Villages, Crystal River, and other communities in Citrus, Levy, Sumter, Marion, and Lake Counties. Contact us at 352-387-8700 or through our online form.