Is this medical neglect/malpractice?

[slaine]

BACK STORY:: This past week my 3 year old son was very very ill, he had sporadic vomiting of bile, very weak and lethargic, and every 10-15 mins or so we would start screaming in pain saying his stomach hurt. I took him to the doctor that morning and they gave him an IV for dehydration and took some blood work [everything came back normal] and sent us home, saying if he got worse to come back.

Well he did get worse later that night and we went back to the ER at 8pm for his severe pain and rag-doll like appearance [he was limp like a rag doll and unresponsive] The ER doctor we seen never did any kind of examination of our son, nor would he listen or address any of my concerns, all he kept talking about was "his diarrhea" and i told him "but he doesn't have diarrhea, he hasn't had a bowel movement since yesterday" and he responded with "don't worry he will....try to keep him hydrated" and sent us home.

We then had to return BACK to the hospital on Friday where the doctors FINALLY looked over our son and found that he had intussuseception and was close to death. They were thankfully able to treat him and we are now at home recovering after 4 days in the hospital.

My question is...is what this ER doctor did considered medical neglect or malpractice?

[caelin]

It can be incredibly difficult to diagnose problems in very young children. That being said, I'd have questioned the physicians who initially saw him to be sure they'd considered the possibility of bowel obstruction. That's actually not that uncommon in young children, but a physician in training might miss it. Of course, being in my position, I could do this - laypeople rarely have the background knowledge to be able to ask the right questions.

I don't think you'd have much success were you to attempt legal action, but a firmly worded letter to the hospital administrator and the director of clinics about your upset would be quite appropriate. Management DOES listen to the concerns of the community their institution serves.