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Accident Injuriesby Douglas R. NolinHow much detail do you give when you visit your doctor seeking medical treatment? How complete is your explanation of your condition if you have to go to the emergency room? Do you feel like a complainer if you tell your doctor all of your problems? Do you try to be stoic, or a "tough guy" when you enter the hospital? Your answers to these questions may have significant implications for both your medical and your legal well-being. In a recent issue of the "Peacock Tales," we suggested some steps that should be taken immediately after an automobile accident. To a certain extent, this article is a natural extension of that previous article. However, this article also applies to other situations that may not arise out of accidents. This article addresses those occasions on which your medical needs and your legal needs coincide, and may very well be dramatically inconsistent with your personal preferences. When you are involved in an accident, whether it happens because you are hit by a car, or because you fall off a ladder at home, it is likely that you will be visiting your doctor or an emergency room, seeking medical treatment. When you do so, you will be asked to give a history, explaining how the injuries occurred, and a complete listing of all of the places you feel discomfort or pain. It is very important to be as complete as possible. This means giving lots of details about how the accident happened. It also means identifying for the nurse or doctor all of the places on your body where you feel pain, neither overstating nor understating your condition. It is our experience that this process of identifying all involved body parts tends to be inconsistent with how many people feel they should act when they visit the doctor. Many people feel like complainers or whiners if they identify too many places where they are feeling pain. Often times people will focus only on the body part that is most seriously injured, and will ignore other body parts that have minor aches and pains, bumps and bruises, or cuts and scratches. The tendency is to believe that those "minor" injuries will resolve of their own accord, and without medical treatment. This creates a two-fold problem. First, it makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the doctor or hospital to adequately address your injuries. They cannot treat what you do not identify. In addition, what you believe is a "minor" problem may be a symptom of a larger problem that needs to be identified and treated. Also, that "minor" problem may become a bigger problem at a later date, if not properly addressed at the earliest possible opportunity. Second, from a legal standpoint, the problem you create by failing to identify an injury is that the medical record does not reflect the existence of that injury. If that "minor" injury becomes a larger problem later, for which you seek medical treatment, it is harder to clearly identify the cause of that injury. If you have been in an accident, and wish to pursue a claim for injuries related to that accident, it is more difficult to prove that the accident caused the injury if the emergency room records do not show that particular injury. The implication is that the injury did not exist as a result of the accident, because it was not mentioned in the medical record. Certainly, we at Peacock Keller do not wish on anyone an accident or medical condition which requires the intervention of a doctor or hospital. However, we know these things happen. If and when they do, it is in your best interest, from both a medical and legal standpoint, to give complete information to your doctors and nurses. If you encounter those situations, you need to overcome your desire to be a "tough guy," and accurately report your condition. |
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