About 44 percent of patients are misdiagnosed when first seeking medical advice, according to Dr. Ghassan N. Pharaon, founder of GNP hospital in Jeddah. “Misdiagnosis is one of the most common types of medical mistakes. Errors can be made by doctors, specialists and laboratory tests, but patients can also contribute to a misdiagnosis in various ways,” he said. Self-diagnosis without professional medical advice is the most common way a patient contributes to an incorrect diagnosis, he added. “People also take dangerous medication without their doctor's advice, resulting in more problems,” said Pharaon. Sometimes patients neglect to report certain symptoms thinking that they're not worth mentioning, or assume a symptom to be irrelevant if the doctor does not ask about it directly, said Pharaon. Doctors also often make mistakes, said Pharaon, when they work long hours and are deprived of proper sleep. Pharaon said that it is best for patients to consult more than one doctor before starting treatment. More specialized doctors are needed in the Kingdom, he added. Emergency rooms of hospitals are where most incorrect diagnoses are made, said Pharaon. He advised patients to always seek the advice of a specialist or consultant the day after visiting an emergency room. He said ER doctors make mistakes because they have to see many patients in a day. This gives them a short space of time to make a proper diagnosis, and they often only treat the symptoms of an illness. A patient, Mohamed Ibrahim, recently filed a complaint against his regular local hospital after a doctor there diagnosed him with muscle pain and prescribed muscle relaxants when he was actually having a minor heart attack. “I have a heart problem and was a candidate for an aortic valve replacement on Feb. 27, but I didn't feel well and complained of intense pain in my neck and shoulders,” said Ibrahim, who is currently hospitalized and recovering in another hospital. Ibrahim said he had gone to the hospital that had misdiagnosed him because he thought it had the best facilities. “I was never 100 percent satisfied with the services and always had a complaint or problem when going for my monthly checkups, but there are no other options in Jeddah.” Lamees Fathi, a local resident, said she found the services to be much better at a hospital she visited in the Greater Boston area in the United States. She had a full medical checkup with the results handed to her after four weeks. Fathi said the report provided a great deal of details about her medical status. “Of course, in the case of a quick diagnosis it is easy to make mistakes. But if a doctor is dedicated and has the patient's best interests at heart he will not offer the first diagnosis that pops into his head,” Fathi said. According to the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom, the majority of misdiagnoses are among infants because they are not able to speak about their problems. It was also difficult for doctors to diagnose digestive, neurological and rare illnesses, the NHS reported. __
