Failure to Diagnose/Treat Due to Defective Healthcare Products
The failure to timely diagnose and/or treat a patient isn’t always caused by Tennessee medical malpractice of a healthcare professional or physician. Sometimes injuries in a healthcare setting are caused by defective laboratory kits and medical screening devices (such as MRIs and CT scans).
To give an example as to how difficult it can be to find the culprit of an injury, we consider the recent recall of Covidien’s Mallinckrodt Sodium Chromate Cr-51 Injection. The Mallinckrodt Sodium Chromate Cr-51 Injection is used to diagnose a rare bone marrow disorder called Polycythemia by injecting chemicals into the blood stream that assists in the determination of blood volume and blood loss. Using a subpotent product could lead to an incorrect result in red blood cell volume or mass. Consequently, Polycythemia could be easily ruled out as the cause based upon a false lab result.
Since the disorder causes too much production of white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets, a misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis followed by a delay in treatment would put a patient at an increased risk of stroke or embolus. A person suffering from undiagnosed Polycythemia could suffer serious personal injury while never knowing that the actual cause was a defective product in Tennessee conducting the diagnostic test.
Finding out how and why a medical condition unexpectedly worsened, or how and why an injury occurred after surgery or treatment, can be an impossible affair. Sometimes, the only way to get the information you need is to resort to legal action. At Baker Associates, we can evaluate your case to determine whether further inquiry is needed to discover whether your injury was caused by a defective product or by medical malpractice. To learn more, talk with one of our skilled TN personal injury attorneys by calling 866-853-2888.
