What Every Woman Must Know About Misread Pap Smears
Cervical cancer used to be a primary cause of death for women in the United States. But, since the creation of the pap smear tool, women are screened and precancerous cells can be treated before cancer has a chance to develop. With this test, the mortality rate has gone down by around half within the last few decades. Unfortunately, despite this influential tool, there may be instances where a doctor or laboratory personnel misread a patient’s Pap smear results.
An attorney at Wieand Law Firm, LLC can imagine how angry and terrified a patient may feel after receiving news that cervical cancer has spread because their doctor failed to properly read pap smear results. We can help you seek restitution for your doctor’s tragic oversight.
What Pap Smear Tests Entail
Pap smears are vital to identifying when precancerous cells are present in the body, and eradicating them before it can progress further. Pap smears entail swabbing the patient’s cervix during a pelvic exam in a gynecologist’s office. This test can truly be a lifesaver when administered and read accurately. However, there can be instances where a doctor was in a rush, fatigued, or distracted and misread a patient’s Pap smear results. This is a crucial error that can change a patient’s life forever.
Who Needs a Pap Smear
It is recommended that a woman who is sexually active, begins receiving yearly pap smear tests at the age of twenty-one. Even if women are in a monogamous relationship, they are encouraged to receive testing on a routine basis. A woman who is thirty years or older and had three normal pap smears in a row, may be permitted to test only once every five years. Women over the age of sixty-five who have a history of normal pap smear tests, may be able to stop receiving these altogether.
If you believe your doctor not only misread your pap smear results, but had failed to give you the correct information about when to receive your next test, please notify your attorney at Wieand Law Firm, LLC immediately. While most patients want to have good faith that their doctors are providing proper medicine, this isn’t always the case.
How Pap Smear Results are Misread
Pap smears are an important step in helping prevent a patient from developing cervical cancer. The test is easy to administer, so there is no reason why a doctor should not order it on a routine schedule of every year, five years, etc. Once the pap smear sample is collected, it is often sent to a large laboratory to be interpreted by cytotechnologists (who are not medical professionals).
Doctors must be held accountable for a misread pap smear even if a lab worker inferred the result. Doctors shouldn’t rely on a non-medical professional for a test result that could make the difference between life or death for a patient. If your doctor misread your pap smear and now you are suffering the dire consequences of this error, please contact our office to speak with an attorney at Wieand Law Firm, LLC. We are here to see this through. Call us without hesitation.
