Disaster Diagnosis

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Hello! Tonight I have a little story about a mis-diagnosis that my mother recently had and the problems that it created with her health. A lesson that I have taken from this incident is that it is always important for health professionals to be very sure in their diagnoses and prognoses. One should not tell a patient that they have an illness or are sick with a certain disease unless they are 100% confident that they know what it is.

A couple of months ago my mother had noticed a red rash that was starting to form on her left side, in the middle of her torso. More days went by, and small red bumps started to form and the rash seemed to have spread. Unsure of what it was, my mother went to MedExpress. There, the physician diagnosed her as having poison ivy. He diagnosed her almost immediately, however, which was surprising because he didn't run any medical tests or consult anyone on his team. He also didn't really take any time to explain his diagnosis. The physician gave her an antibiotic to take, but the rash still persisted and grew.

So, my mom decided to go to work and seek the opinion of one of her medical co-workers (my mom works in a hospital). The doctor was able to evaluate the growth in a culture test and came to the conclusion that it was a MRSA infection, which comes from the bacteria Staphylococcus Aureus. The doctor also informed my mother that if she would have let the infection go untreated for too long, it would have caused life-threatening sepsis. He gave her an alternative medication and the infection cleared up within a couple of weeks.

I feel as though misdiagnosis is common in the medical field, but I believe that it is important to try to double and triple check your diagnoses. That is what the doctor at MedExpress failed to do, because he did not ask any other colleagues about their opinion or run any tests on my mom's infection. Mistakes like this can be serious and life threatening, especially in this case with my mom. I must take the steps necessary in order to properly diagnose my patients.

I hope that you found this story interesting, thanks for reading, and until next time,

-Meredith <3

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