No one likes the thought of a misdiagnosis; however, some patients never really know that they weren’t properly diagnosed in the first place. Unfortunately it is usually during an autopsy when most misdiagnoses are finally revealed.
When an autopsy is conducted, there are clinical findings. Doctors can compare the autopsy report with the diagnoses the patient has in their medical chart to see if they agree. If they don’t match up, then a misdiagnosis has occurred.
Unfortunately, information from recent studies indicate that the incidences of autopsies are decreasing, which will limit the opportunity to measure misdiagnosis. It is important however, to stop misdiagnoses from occurring before someone ends up in the morgue.
Visit our library to learn more about misdiagnoses and the dangers of failure to diagnose a disease.
