There are many reasons why doctors might misdiagnose or fail to diagnose meningitis, leading to delays in treatment that could prove fatal:
Early Symptoms Are Not Specific to Meningitis: Early symptoms of meningitis, such as headache, fever, and nausea, are common with many other illnesses, such as the flu or migraines. This makes it difficult to determine if the patient has meningitis because it is hard to rule out more common medical conditions.
Atypical Symptoms: Some patients do not exhibit the classic triad of fever, headache and neck stiffness. Some may present with few or subtle symptoms. This makes it much harder to make an accurate diagnosis.
Meningitis Looks Like Other Severe Illnesses: Conditions like encephalitis, brain abscesses or even severe migraines can mimic the symptoms of meningitis.
Negative Tests: When doctors test patients who are in the early stages of meningitis, doctors might not find anything abnormal.
Rapid Progression: Bacterial meningitis can progress quite rapidly, causing severe symptoms before doctors can do the required tests.
Lack of Awareness: In some cases, healthcare providers may not consider meningitis in their differential diagnosis, especially if patients present atypical symptoms or doctors do not have good reason to suspect an infectious disease.
While diagnosing meningitis may come with some challenges, doctors may fail to perform the necessary tests, especially when they observe certain symptoms. For instance, some patients may experience a muscle spasm that causes their neck to arch back. Others experience sensitivity to light, rapid breathing and changes in their mental state.
While doctors often make mistakes when diagnosing illnesses, these mistakes may not constitute medical malpractice. Your lawyer must establish that doctors failed to meet the standard of care for the situation, such as by failing to order tests or conduct a physical examination. They could also misread test results.