Can my doctor be held liable for missing symptoms of pancreatic cancer?

Receiving a pancreatic cancer diagnosis early can save your life. The key to treating pancreatic cancer is to catch the cancer as soon as possible and to begin treatment before the cancer cells grow and spread or before the cancer spreads to other parts of your body. If you went to a doctor exhibiting symptoms of pancreatic cancer, such as weight loss, loss of appetite, pain or jaundice, then your doctor may potentially be held legally liable if he missed these symptoms. Whether or not you will be able to sue and hold the physician liable depends on whether you can meet the burden of proof imposed on the plaintiff in a medical malpractice case. 

In a medical malpractice case, a plaintiff has a burden of proving that his or her doctor:

• Breached the standard of care and was negligent under the law. The standard of care is a reasonable doctor standard. Negligence is defined as behaving below that reasonable standard. This means if it was not reasonable that your doctor did not diagnose your symptoms or at least treat or address the symptoms, then the doctor can be viewed as negligent
• Directly caused damages through his breach. The breach alone is not enough- it must have proximately or directly caused something to happen to the plaintiff that would not have happened if the doctor had been more competent and careful. So, if you would have suffered precisely the same fate if the doctor had not been negligent and missed your symptoms, you won't be able to recover since there will be nothing to recover for. 

Medical malpractice is one of the more complicated personal injury cases; to be successful, you will need a lawyer on your side.