This book opened my eyes, even though as a medical professional as a RN we can forget at times, the emotional aspect of a patient. Nika’s book (Misdsiagnosed: The Search for Dr. House) is a biography of her hidden pain, devastating issues, and how life changes with it. Its ups and downs with romance, jobs, challenges, and in her case, even financial as she didn’t have insurance for a lot of the testing. This is NOT cheap to do diagnosing, to find out what is wrong with you and it can take years as Nika Beamon has written. It alarms all of us that the potential of any medical problem can go undiagnosed, untreated, and can have devastating results– in some cases, death can occur. Nika was smart to be able to take such detail notes, the accuracy of these visits and to write down her thoughts as she chronicled her medical history. Most people do not have a clue!

However, the definition of misdiagnosed is the same as a medical error. A medical error is a preventable adverse effect of care, whether or not it is evident or harmful to the patient. This might include an inaccurate or incomplete diagnosis or treatment of a disease, injury, syndrome, behavior, infection, or other ailment. The problem with medical errors or misdiagnoses is the patient DOES get harmed where the Hippocratic oath is “Do No Harm.” Another issue is the fact, doctors still get paid. They are called MISADVENTURES ICD-9-CM # E876.9, Unspecified misadventure during medical care (2014 ICD-10-CM Y69 Unspecified misadventure during surgical and medical care). However, E876.9 describes the circumstance causing an injury, not the nature of the injury, and therefore should not be used as a principal diagnosis.

DOES this seem fair, after all the dollars people pay for medical care. Nika’s book description quoted these facts:

The Mayo Clinic found 26 percent of cases are misdiagnosed; this number rises to a staggering 44 percent when it comes to some types of cancer according to the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

And, a study published in April showed 1 in every 20 people or 12 million per year are misdiagnosed at outpatient clinics in the U.S.

Nika was misdiagnosed until finally someone really listened, listened and figured out she had a rare autoimmune disorder. She got lucky but it took years, decades to get the help she needed.

It hit home also as I can relate with chronic pain and also with having multiple diagnoses, at times the doctors are challenged and can be wrong. I have been given diagnoses that I thought was correct and other doctors just states it is wrong and frustrating to me as then we start from scratch all over again. I felt empathy throughout the book following Nika’s tale for answers.

I recommend this book for ALL MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS TO READ as they may want to understand how a patient can really feel going through this process.

Special thanks to author, Nika Beamon for providing me with a copy of her novel, Misdiagnosed: The Search for Dr. House.

Disclaimer:
This review is my honest opinion. I did not receive any type of compensation for reading and reviewing this book.

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#ChronicIllness #Misdiagnosed