Medical malpractice affects many New York residents every year, and a common type is a misdiagnosis. A failure to diagnose a disease can lead to harm for the patient if treatment is delayed after a medical provider failed to correctly identify the patient’s condition. Another type of misdiagnosis occurs when a doctor tells patients that they have a condition that in fact they do not have, which can result in unnecessary invasive procedures.

Ticks are common in New York, which means that so is Lyme disease. While the tick-borne illness can be readily addressed with antibiotics, it has been known to linger on in the form of symptoms like joint pain, brain fog, fatigue and headaches. This condition is known as post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, and it can last between several months and a couple years.

Gynecological cancers underline the importance of early diagnosis for women in New York and across the United States. These types of cancers, which affect the female reproductive system, can have a severe and deadly impact on women’s health. However, many are quite treatable if they are diagnosed and treated early in their development. Delayed diagnosis, on the other hand, can have severe consequences for a woman with gynecological cancer.

Some New York women who have heart attacks may not recognize their symptoms because those symptoms tend to differ from the more highly-publicized ones suffered by men. Furthermore, medical professionals may not treat women’s heart attacks as aggressively as men’s. The Journal of the American Heart Association has published research that says women are more likely to die in the year after a heart attack than men. The reason appears to be the type of care women receive in the wake of such an attack.