Cancer Misdiagnosis Lawyer

Cancer misdiagnosis may occur when a doctor fails to appropriately investigate symptoms or interprets test results incorrectly. 

Errors in Clinical Judgment 

According to the Journal of Healthcare Risk Management, 76 percent of missed cancer diagnoses occurred as a result of errors in clinical judgment, including the following: 

• Failure to consult with a specialist 
• Failure to refer the patient to a specialist 
• Failure to order diagnostic tests 
• Delay in ordering diagnostic tests 

Pathology Errors 

Pathology errors occur when a diagnostic test is carried out or interpreted incorrectly. According to the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, this may include the following errors: 

• Sampling error – The health care provider misses the lesion or takes an insufficient sample 
• Reading error – The pathologist misinterprets cells that mimic cancer 
• Contamination error – The sample is mixed up with another patient’s sample 

Bias 

Although a health care provider is supposed to be objective, bias is a widespread problem in the health care field. Biases may be cognitive or personal. 

Cognitive Biases  

A cognitive bias is an error in thinking and interpreting information. According to the University of Utah and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the cognitive biases listed below are common in the health care field. These biases can cause a doctor to disregard pertinent diagnostic facts. 

• Anchoring bias – An over-reliance on the first information received with an unwillingness to consider new information 
• Attribution bias – A focus on discovering the reason for one’s own observations 
• Blind spots – Failure or refusal to see one’s own biases 
• Confirmation bias – Interpreting information in a way that confirms one’s existing beliefs 
• Framing – Making decisions based on how information is presented rather than considering the facts alone 
• Overconfidence – Having more confidence in one’s abilities than in the facts 
• Salience – A focus on the symptoms that are easiest to interpret 
• Zero-risk – Focusing only on certainties and dismissing ideas that incur risk 
• Search-satisficing bias – Believing our current knowledge is complete   
• Status quo bias – Favoring options that support current scientific dogma 
• False consensus bias – Basing medical decisions on the agreement of others 
• Not-invented-here bias – Bias against knowledge or information from external sources 

These types of biases can cause a doctor to refuse to consider new information or become stuck on a specific diagnosis, no matter how wrong it is.  

Personal Biases 

Personal biases have no place in medicine but are pervasive, especially racial and gender biases.    

Racial Bias 

According to Medical News Today, white patients are more likely to receive quality health care than non-white patients. According to the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington, black people have the highest cancer mortality and shortest survival of all racial and ethnic groups. This is not because of genetics but instead results from unequal treatment. 

For example, when black patients present with pain or other symptoms, they may be labeled as drug seekers, as happened to retired nurse Stephanie Walker, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer and had metastatic bone disease. 

According to a study by Komodo Health, black patients with colorectal cancer wait for a diagnosis an average of eight days longer than white patients and were more likely to be diagnosed after their cancer metastasized. They are 40 percent more likely to die from the disease. 

Bias against black patients is a systemic problem in the medical field. In medical school, students are not taught to recognize symptoms that may appear differently in black people, such as skin cancer, according to Stat News.  

Gender Bias 

Women are more likely to have pain symptoms dismissed than men. According to Pain Research and Management, male patients who complain of pain are regarded by health care providers as “brave,” while women are regarded as hysterical or emotional and treated as time-wasters.  

As a result, women are more likely to receive a mental health diagnosis, resulting in a physical condition such as cancer being missed. 

According to BMJ Journals, among patients with bladder or renal cancers, women are more likely than men to require three or more pre-referral consultations to get a diagnosis.  

General Personal Biases  

Health care providers may also draw unsubstantiated conclusions about patients with the following characteristics, according to Medical News Today, which may prevent them from being objective in providing an accurate, timely diagnosis: 

• Overweight – Health care providers may assume that overweight or obese people are lazy, undisciplined, or unlikely to stick to treatment. 
• Low socioeconomic status – Health care providers are more likely to delay testing and avoid referral to specialists based on the assumption that low-income people are irresponsible, unintelligent, or irrational. 
• Age – Health care providers may assume older patients are helpless or unwilling to receive treatment and may perceive them as offensive and demanding. 
• Ableism – Health care providers may give patients without disabilities preferential treatment while viewing disabled patients as unwell or having a lower quality of life. 
• Sexual identity – Health care providers may have an implicit bias against people in the LGBTQIA+ community. 

False assumptions about any person based on these attributes can prevent a doctor from being objective when diagnosing cancer. For example, a doctor may assume an overweight person with shortness of breath just needs exercise and refuse to consider lung cancer. A doctor may assume an older adult with fatigue is suffering age-related fatigue when it is a symptom of metastatic cancer.