http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151114185224.htm
“The committee concluded that diagnostic errors are common,” Graber said. “Each of us is likely to experience one or more diagnostic errors in our lifetime, some of which could have very serious consequences. Many of these errors could be prevented. Both unusual and very common diseases are being missed, including heart disease, cancer and infections.”
Diagnostic errors involve several types of missed opportunities to make a correct and timely diagnosis; a diagnosis may be missed completely, the wrong one may be provided, or diagnosis may be delayed, all of which can lead to harm from delayed or inappropriate treatments and tests…
I’d say that the chronic pain patient population has a very high rate of misdiagnosis. But, while these reports from the Institute of Medicine are interesting, do they really make a difference? Has there been a difference since the IOM report from 1999, which indicated that up to 400,000 patients die every year from medical error?
Unfortunately doctors and others in the medical community don’t want to talk about ‘diagnostic overshadowing.’ It accounts for at least 25% of the early deaths of the mentally ill each year. My guess is the numbers are higher with the mentally ill and those with chronic pain are battling the same situation.
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