Archive for the ‘Patient Misdiagnoses’ Category

Five Steps to Avoid Misdiagnosis

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

By Evan Falchuk

Sunday’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an op-ed I wrote about how you can avoid misdiagnosis.

Published studies show that rates of misdiagnosis in America are a stunning 1 in 5.The good news is there are several steps you can take to protect yourself. They start with understanding why misdiagnosis happens, how you can work with your doctor to avoid it and, above all, playing an active role in your own health care.

Diagnostic errors happen much more often than most people realize. Even doctors are not immune. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, 35% of doctors have reported errors in their own care or that of a family member.

How can this be happening in a time of such great medical advances?

How indeed.  Go to the Journal Sentinel site and find out how you can protect yourself.

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Posted in Doctor Patient Relationship, Patient Misdiagnoses | No Comments »

5 Ways You Can Avoid Being Misdiagnosed

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

By Evan Falchuk

Billionaire Teddy Forstmann has apparently been diagnosed with a serious form of brain cancer.  There’s a tragic twist to the story: according to Fox Business News, Forstmann believes that for more than a year, he had been misdiagnosed with meningitis.

ABC News wonders:

How could such a misfortune befall a billionaire —- a man able to afford the best doctors, best technology and the most sophisticated diagnostic tests?

They’re missing the point.  Misdiagnosis happens with shocking regularity – as much as 44% of the time, depending on the illness.

I’m sure that, as with most things, being a billionaire is better.  But as a neurosurgeon quoted by ABC News points out, even for a billionaire, getting the right care is “still a bit of a crap shoot.”

So how can you improve your odds?  Here are 5 tips that work.

(more…)

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Posted in Doctor Patient Relationship, Patient Misdiagnoses, Quality Care | No Comments »

Misdiagnosis and How to Protect Yourself

Friday, June 17th, 2011

By Evan Falchuk

WBAI in New York interviewed me about the alarming rates of cancer misdiagnosis.  As you’ll hear, there are no simple solutions except one: ask questions, and insist that you get the right care.

You can listen to the interview here.

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Posted in In the News, Patient Misdiagnoses | No Comments »

I Did it For You

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

By Evan Falchuk

How often do people get the wrong diagnosis?

Too often.

There are things you can do help protect yourself.  Things like, asking questions, being sure everything makes sense to you, not doing anything you’re not sure about.

At Best Doctors, helping people do this is what we do every day, and so I want to tell you a story.  It’s about my brother.

I want to tell it to you it because it will help you understand the important work we do here, and because of something very special that happened for him this weekend.

(more…)

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Posted in Decision Support, Interesting Cases, Patient Misdiagnoses | 29 Comments »

“I was shocked”

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

By Evan Falchuk

According to the Annals of Internal Medicine, doctors make the wrong medical decisions surprisingly often.

Using a “mystery patient” technique – in which actors pretended to be patients – researchers found that doctors made errors in complicated cases in 60% to 90% of cases.  Sixty to ninety percent. In uncomplicated cases, they made errors in nearly 30% of cases.

As one study participant put it, “I was shocked.”

(more…)

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Posted in Doctor Patient Relationship, Patient Misdiagnoses, Quality Care | 11 Comments »

  • "Medicine is learned by the bedside and not in the class room. Let not your conception of manifestations of disease come from work heard in the lecture room or read from the book: see and then research, compare and control. But see first."
    - Sir William Osler, MD
    The Father of Modern Medicine

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