Hello,
I have been diagnosed 5 months ago now, I am 21 and was ignored when I arrived with stroke like symptoms at 16. I was sent back home twice from A & E, without even a cranial nerve exam?
Being a medical student, I realised how much i was turned away from the doctors, this should have defiantly not been the case. One assumed I was not being honest as my symptoms were transient.
I contacted lawyers for medical negligence and wanted the ignored symptom to be noticed, this could be another patient being sent back home. However, was told that it has been over 3 years and that I cannot really do anything as I do not have a mental disability essentially, its autoimmune and that when I went to the doctors as a child, 16, it has been 5 years since, so I cannot really do anything about this?
As an aspiring doctor, I do not want other doctors to treat anyone else like this However, I have no idea about how I can spread this message? If anyone has an idea?
I still cannot believe that the lawyers cannot do anything?
The most discouraging thing to say is that MN expertise on here is in short supply. Lots of sentiment and some first-hand experience of symptoms and treatments.
I thought about going down the route of MN because the Neurologist who gave me the official diagnosis missed it 2 years previously. Whilst noting some potentially neurological symptoms and referencing previous spinal MRI’s, he omitted to order a head scan. Instead prescribed some Nortriptyline and suggested Gabapentin, Pregabalin and Duloxetine as other possibilities.
When I challenged him following the diagnosis, he was clearly rattled by the suggestion and said “I’m guided by the symptoms”. Without something damning in the notes, I realised I wouldn’t get a legal challenge to stick. Really for MN, like any successful legal campaign, you’re pretty much looking for the smoking gun. MN is unique: the “victim” is not the same as the “defendant” and normal rules governing innocent until proven guilty and reasonable doubt still apply - and rightly so.
You need to either find the smoking gun in your existing notes or put aside any thought of a MN claim - for your own sanity. Sorry.
Graeme
As you are medical student and an aspiring Dr, if too much time has passed for you to do anything for yourself, maybe concentrate on what you can do for others when you are a Dr? How can you make changes from within the medical field?