After receiving the results of all your medical examinations, your doctor may conclude that you have a serious health condition. However, they may be hesitant to share this unfortunate news with you, out of fear that you cannot emotionally handle it. While they may be considerate of your feelings by doing so, this ultimately does you a great disservice. That is, your doctor owes you a duty of care in being forthright with your official test results and prognosis. With that being said, please continue reading to learn why it is wrong for your doctor to withhold the whole truth regarding your medical diagnosis and how one of the experienced New York City delayed diagnose lawyers at Mark L. Bodner, P.C., can help you rectify this issue.
Why is it wrong for my doctor to withhold the truth about my diagnosis?
Simply put, when your doctor withholds the full truth regarding your official medical diagnosis, they deprive you of your right to informed consent. That is, you have complete autonomy over your body. So if you do not get enough information regarding your health condition, you may not choose the course of treatment that will most likely get you the extent of healing or recovery you desire. The same goes if your doctor does not provide every possible option for medical treatments, as you may unintentionally choose one with a less effective outcome, or one with unnecessarily higher risk factors. All of this to say, withholding the truth or lying outright about your current state of health may cause direct damage to your physical well-being.
And so, when we say a doctor is expected to give a full disclosure to their patient, we mean every last detail on the following pieces of information:
- The truth about the patient’s official medical diagnosis.
- The exact data results from all the medical examinations taken.
- The standard medical procedures and effective alternatives to the procedure.
- The known success rates and risk factors of each proposed medical procedure.
- The likely consequence of the patient not choosing to undergo any medical procedure.
Do I have grounds to sue if my doctor is not totally honest with me?
You must understand that withholding the truth regarding a diagnosis does not always constitute medical malpractice. This may only apply if such negligence results in bodily harm to a patient. Specifically, if after being deprived of giving informed consent to a medical treatment plan, a patient’s health condition worsens when it should have gotten better. Or, if they incur additional illnesses or injuries due to risks from the treatment they did not anticipate. Lastly, this must end with a patient experiencing hefty economic damages (i.e., more expensive medical bills) and significant non-economic damages (i.e., more physical pain and emotional suffering) that would not have transpired otherwise.
The first step toward preparing yourself for this legal action is to retain the services of a skilled New York City diagnosis error attorney. Look no further than Mark L. Bodner, P.C.