A major 2014 study found that out of 12 million US patients, approximately 5% are misdiagnosed every year. That’s a huge, scary number, and the research got tons of press. Even non-medical news sources, like CBS, picked up on the story, crafting shocking headlines like “12 Million Americans Misdiagnosed Each Year.” But unfortunately, at least for patients, the study only looked into diagnostic errors affecting outpatients.
According to Dr. Mark L. Graber, a Yale and Stanford-educated patient safety pioneer, and current professor emeritus of medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, misdiagnosis may be far more common than the headlines would lead you to believe. In a comprehensive review of the medical literature on diagnostic errors, published in 2013 by the British Medical Journal, discovered even higher rates of misdiagnosis.
Just how common is cancer misdiagnosis? Read the following infographic, brought to you by the team at MarcianoLegal.com, for more details.
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Co-founder and Vice President of SearchRank, responsible for many of the day to day operations of the company. She is also founder of The Arizona Builders’ Zone, a construction / home improvement portal.
