Medical malpractice or negligence can cause injury to a patient’s kidneys or worsen a patient’s kidney (renal) disease. This can occur when doctors fail to diagnose a patient’s kidney injury or disease, fail to diagnose other conditions that can cause renal injury, or fail to adequately treat kidney disease after it is diagnosed.
Medical malpractice law holds doctors to an accepted and reasonable standard in the care and treatment of their patients. If a patient’s kidneys or other organs are injured because a doctor does not provide adequate care or treatment to the patient, the doctor may be found liable for medical malpractice in a lawsuit brought by the injured patient against the doctor.
Learn more about Kidney Disease and whether you may have a claim for medical malpractice here.
Medical Malpractice:
Failure to Diagnose Kidney or Other Disease
Failure to Diagnose Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)
Because certain people are more likely than others to develop CKD, doctors should regularly test these patients during routine yearly exams to see if their kidneys have lost any of their function. If a doctor does not order kidney function tests, the doctor may fail to discover (diagnose) a patient’s developing kidney disease.
If the patient’s kidneys become further damaged due to the doctor’s failure to detect (and then treat) the disease, the doctor may be held liable for the additional damage in a legal action for medical malpractice. A doctor may also be found to have caused a patient’s kidney injury through a failure to diagnose if the proper tests were ordered but the doctor did not correctly interpret the results.
Failure to Diagnose other Conditions that Can Cause Kidney Injury
Doctors may also cause a patient’s kidney injury by failing to diagnose other diseases or conditions that can lead to kidney injury they are not recognized and treated. This can occur through lack of attention to patients’ symptoms, not recognizing symptoms of underlying conditions that can cause kidney injury, not asking patients needed questions, or misinterpreting the results of tests that are given. Kidney injuries that can result from failed diagnoses of other disorders include
- Nephritic Syndrome, which can be caused by an immune response to another infection or disease
- Acute Nephritis, which can be caused by a bacterial infection or by an allergy to an antibiotic or other medicine
- Nephrosclerosis, which can be caused by high blood pressure
- Chronic Kidney Disease, which can be caused by diabetes (high sugar) or high blood pressure
Medical Malpractice:
Failure to Adequately Treat Kidney Injury or Disease
Even when a doctor correctly diagnoses a patient’s kidney disease, the doctor may still be found liable in a medical malpractice action for additional kidney injury caused by the doctor’s failure to adequately treat the patient’s disease. This can occur in a number of ways, including
- the failure to order appropriate treatments to slow down the progression of kidney disease
- the failure to monitor the use of medicines that can cause further damage to already diseased kidneys
- the prescription of medications that interact and cause renal failure (End-Stage Kidney Disease)
- the delayed ordering of dialysis or kidney transplant for patients with End-Stage Renal Disease (Kidney Failure)
Feldman & Pinto’s Kidney Injury/Disease Medical Malpractice Lawyers
Feldman & Pinto’s Medical Malpractice Attorneys have considerable experience with medical malpractice lawsuits, including those brought by clients with kidney injuries caused by their doctors’ negligent care. If you believe your kidney disease or injury was caused by a doctor’s faulty diagnosis or treatment, contact our kidney disease lawyers for a free consultation about your case.