Researchers found that women and minorities are at high risk for fatal medical misdiagnosis. Nearly 1 in 4 hospital patients, who were moved to the intensive care unit or who died, experienced medical misdiagnosis with their ailments. Furthermore, almost 18% of these patients were harmed or died.
According to the study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, 795,000 patients a year die or become permanently disabled due to misdiagnosis. This also puts some patients at higher risk than others.
Women and Minorities at High Risk for Misdiagnosis
Dr. David Newman-Toker, the lead author of the BMJ study and a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, stated that gender and racial disparities are present in the ongoing risk of misdiagnosis.
Particularly, women and minorities are 20% to 30% more likely to experience than their men and white counterparts. Newman-Toker added that this significant difference is inexcusable.
Medical misdiagnosis often leads patients into grave harm, with an estimated 22.5% of lung cancers, 17.5% of strokes, and 1.5% of heart attacks.
Furthermore, it has also affected women who are entering motherhood; mortality among Black mothers have increased significantly for the past few years. Currently, the U.S.A. holds the highest maternal mortality rate in the world among other developed countries.
CDC also stated that non-Hispanic Black mothers are 2.6 times as likely to die as non-Hispanic white moms. It is reported that almost 50% of these deaths occur within the year after delivery.
Research indicates that black women experiencing childbirth-related heart failure are often diagnosed at later stages than their white counterparts. This delayed diagnosis can have dire consequences, as patients' conditions deteriorate further, making full recovery less likely and increasing the likelihood of enduring weakened hearts for the rest of their lives.
Such misdiagnoses can be life-altering, preventing individuals from pursuing their desired family plans or necessitating heart transplants, leaving emotional scars that are just as deep as the physical ones.
Black people with depression are more likely than others to be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. Minorities are less likely than whites to be diagnosed early with dementia, depriving them of the opportunities to receive treatments that work best in the early stages of the disease.
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Misdiagnosis in the Medical Field
One of the reasons why misdiagnosis in the field becomes fatal is because of medical textbooks since for numerous years they have only illustrated diseases with stereotypical images of white men. Only 4.5% of images in general medical textbooks feature patients with dark skin.
Karen Lutfey Spencer, a professor of health and behavioral sciences at the University of Colorado-Denver stated that it is easy to see why doctors are more confident when diagnosing white men.
In one experiment, doctors exhibited greater confidence when diagnosing white male patients compared to Black patients or younger women. This lack of confidence often led to delayed testing and treatment recommendations, a disturbing revelation that underscores the pervasive nature of bias in healthcare.
That may help explain why patients with darker complexions are less likely to receive a timely diagnosis with conditions that affect the skin, from cancer to Lyme disease, which causes a red or pink rash in the earliest stage of infection.
Another example of this is that individuals of Black ethnicity who contract Lyme disease often receive diagnoses at later, more advanced stages of the illness, which can lead to complications such as arthritis and damage to the heart.
Black individuals diagnosed with melanoma face a significantly higher risk of mortality within a five-year period compared to their white counterparts.
The continuous occurrence of misdiagnosis among women and minorities has existed for centuries. While there have been some improvements in these studies over time, critical errors in diagnosis that pose life-threatening consequences continue to be distressingly prevalent, despite the availability of advanced diagnostic tools.
Dr. Hardeep Singh, a respected professor at Baylor College of Medicine specializing in enhancing diagnostic procedures, underscores the persistence of these grave diagnostic errors.
