What Are The Examples Of Medical Errors In Hospitals?
Gregg Hollander | April 14, 2026 | Uncategorized
Hospitals are supposed to be places of healing, but many of the cases we handle start with preventable errors that occur inside those walls. When you look at patterns across years of malpractice work, certain types of mistakes show up again and again.
Some of the main categories of injuries we see specifically with hospital and emergency room cases include:
- Failure to diagnose
- Misdiagnosis
- Delayed diagnosis
- Surgical errors
- Medication errors
- Anesthesia errors
- Birth injury cases related to labor and delivery
- Failure to properly monitor or follow up on a patient’s condition
What Are the Examples of Medical Errors in Hospitals?
Medical errors in hospitals are preventable mistakes in healthcare that can cause harm to patients during diagnosis, treatment, or care. These errors can happen at any stage of medical care and often result from system failures, human error, or miscommunication.
Common examples of medical errors in hospitals include:
- Medication errors: Giving the wrong drug, incorrect dosage, or failing to check for harmful drug interactions.
- Surgical errors: Performing surgery on the wrong body part, carrying out the wrong procedure, or leaving surgical instruments inside a patient.
- Diagnostic errors: Misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, or failure to identify a serious condition such as cancer or stroke.
- Hospital-acquired infections: Infections patients develop during a hospital stay, such as bloodstream infections, surgical site infections, or catheter-related infections.
- Patient monitoring errors: Failure to properly monitor a patient’s condition, leading to missed warning signs or delayed treatment.
- Patient falls: Injuries caused when patients fall due to inadequate supervision, poor mobility support, or unsafe hospital environments.
- Communication errors: Breakdowns in communication between healthcare providers that result in incorrect or delayed treatment.
What Is The Most Commonly Missed Diagnosis In The Emergency Department?
Stroke is consistently identified as the most commonly missed diagnosis in the emergency department. It is frequently overlooked because symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, or weakness can be mistaken for less serious conditions.
Other commonly missed emergency department diagnoses include heart attack, aortic dissection, venous thromboembolism (blood clots), and spinal cord compression. These conditions are often missed because they can present with vague or atypical symptoms that overlap with more minor health issues.
Most commonly missed diagnoses in the emergency department include:
- Stroke: Often missed when patients present with dizziness, vertigo, headache, or non-classic neurological symptoms.
- Myocardial infarction (heart attack): Can be misdiagnosed when symptoms such as nausea, shortness of breath, or jaw pain occur without chest pain.
- Aortic dissection: Frequently mistaken for back pain, abdominal pain, or musculoskeletal issues.
- Venous thromboembolism (DVT or pulmonary embolism): May present with mild leg pain or shortness of breath that is not immediately recognized as serious.
- Spinal cord compression: Can be mistaken for muscle strain or routine back pain, delaying urgent treatment.
What Is a Real Life Example of Medical Negligence?
A real life example of medical negligence is when a healthcare provider fails to diagnose or treat a serious condition in time, and the patient suffers severe harm or death as a result. This can happen when symptoms are missed, test results are overlooked, or a condition is incorrectly diagnosed and treatment is delayed.
One example is a patient who arrives at the emergency department with signs of a serious infection or cardiac event, but the condition is misdiagnosed as a minor illness. As a result, the patient is discharged or not treated appropriately and later suffers serious complications or dies.
Other real life examples of medical negligence include:
- Delayed or missed diagnosis: A serious condition such as stroke, heart attack, or cancer is not identified in time, leading to preventable harm.
- Surgical mistakes: Operating on the wrong site, performing the wrong procedure, or leaving surgical instruments inside a patient.
- Medication errors: Administering the wrong drug or incorrect dosage, or failing to recognize harmful drug interactions.
- Failure to monitor a patient: Not recognizing signs of deterioration in a hospitalized patient, leading to preventable complications.
- Birth injuries: Failure to perform a timely C-section or improper use of delivery tools causing injury to mother or child.
- Failure to treat infection: Ignoring or misinterpreting test results, resulting in a worsening or untreated infection.
Why These Errors Matter Legally
From a malpractice standpoint, we are always looking at two questions:
- Did the hospital staff deviate from what a reasonably careful provider would have done in that same situation?
- Did that deviation actually change the patient’s outcome in a meaningful way?
You can have sloppy care that does not change the outcome, and legally that is usually not a case. You can also have a terrible outcome with no negligence. The intersection of a preventable error and a changed outcome is where malpractice lives.
Case Example: How a Missed Ultrasound Led to the Loss of a Testicle
One of my more recent cases involved a young man in his twenties who worked for a cable company. He fell from a ladder while wiring a home. As he slipped, his belt caught the rung and gave him what I often describe as the worst wedgie of his life. One of his testicles was trapped between his underwear and pants, and he went to the emergency department with significant testicular pain.
In that situation, the gold standard is very clear. Any patient who presents with testicular pain should have a scrotal ultrasound to assess blood flow to the testicle. Conditions like torsion and serious trauma are emergencies. There is only a short window to relieve pressure and save the testicle.
The ER physician did not order the ultrasound. Instead, she ordered imaging of his abdomen and pelvis that did not answer the critical question. She discharged him.
Over the next 48 hours, his pain worsened. When he returned, the hospital finally ordered the ultrasound. It showed no blood flow to his right testicle. He was rushed to surgery, but by then it was too late, and the testicle had to be removed.
This is a classic example of a hospital error:
- The right test was not ordered when it mattered
- A simple, noninvasive study was skipped
- That delay directly changed the outcome
For a young, unmarried man, that loss is not just cosmetic. Fertility, future relationships, and the emotional impact all become part of the damages analysis.
That is what a real, preventable medical error in a hospital looks like from my side of the table.