One reason for unnecessary medical errors is that doctors simply don’t have all the information they need. This can happen when charts get confused, when communication breaks down in the hospital or when other such mistakes are made.
But one reason that this occurs may have very little to do with the hospital system and everything to do with the doctor themselves. Studies have found that doctors tend to interrupt their patients after about 11 seconds. This means that they may simply not be listening long enough to get all the information they need to make the appropriate decision.
Why does it happen?
These interruptions happen for a lot of different reasons. In some cases, doctors are very busy and they may try to rush the patient along if they feel like it’s going to take an excessive amount of time to have the conversation. In other cases, the doctor may simply make a snap judgment about what they think is wrong faster than the patient would believe possible.
In both cases, this means the doctor could make the wrong diagnosis. They might not know about all of the symptoms or they might make assumptions about the case that are simply incorrect. If they would have listened for longer than 11 seconds, they would know that, but it is this lack of listening that leads to the malpractice.
If you’ve suffered injury or even gone through the death of a loved one due to the mistakes made by a medical care provider, you may be able to seek financial compensation. Be sure you know what steps you can take.