#misdiagnosis

#misdiagnosis

Audrey was in seventh grade when her bones started breaking: eight in total, over six months. Some of them broke dramatically, like her wrist, which fractured when she fell down a flight of stairs. Others less so: She broke her foot just stepping on it oddly. The broken bones became part of a strange collection of symptoms: Her tendons and ligaments started tearing. She would faint suddenly.

In my sex therapy practice, I see a respectable number of couples in heterosexual relationships where the presenting issue is that the male partner has been engaging in sexual behavior with other men and has kept this secret from his girlfriend or wife...until it was no longer secret. Needless to say, by the time these couples come to see me, their relationship is in deep crisis. I would like to address a few of the common issues that these couples face.

But even in the best-funded clinics with the most committed professionals, standards can still fall short; doctors, like the rest of us, are working with stone age minds. Despite years of training, human brains are not optimally equipped for the pace, pressure, and complexity of modern healthcare. Given that patient care is medicine's core purpose, the question is who, or what, is best placed to deliver it?

In 2025, the Emergency Care Research Institute (ECRI) produced a ranked list of 10 threats to patient care. At the top of the list was "Dismissing patient, family, and caregiver concerns." In a survey done by HealthCentral, they found that over 94 percent of their survey-takers felt that "their doctors have ignored or dismissed their symptoms." More than 61 percent of respondents reported that their doctors "blamed them for their symptoms or made them feel like they were crazy."

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is a connective tissue disorder that can cause chronic pain and fatigue among other symptoms.

Professor Bates emphasized how intertwined the miscommunication about Mr. Goss's medication and his pre-existing conditions contributed to the tragic outcome of this case. His failure to timely identify the heart condition led to misguided actions.