It is for me.
In her case it looks like they were misled by her past injuries and didn't do a proper diligence. Unfortunately, not many patients take their health into their own hands and drive the diagnosis efforts, questioning doctors all along. It's very uncomfortable to question doctors, and many of them don't take it nicely, but that's something we need to overcome as patients. I view doctors as mere consultants that I pay to get opinions as part of my health team. We're a team and I have the ultimate stake, so I also have the ultimate say.
In my case, they also misdiagnosed me for the first 8 weeks: first it was Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss, then it was Endolymphatic Hydrops, then it was "we don't know"... then I saw about half a dozen ENTs. One of them was outside of my HMO (at my cost), did 3 audiograms at 3 different audiology clinics outside of my HMO (again, on my dime), and ended up getting the right diagnosis. Over $30K later (out of my pocket too) I recovered a good chunk of hearing. They even misinterpreted my CT Scan, and when I finally did my surgery and Otosclerosis was confirmed, the bogus radiologist report got amended to say "We see radiolucencies consistent with Otosclerosis".
Too bad the T didn't go away too... but it is what it is.
A majority of Otosclerosis sufferers do experience Tinnitus, and in about half of the cases, surgery (stapedotomy) can get rid of it. These are pretty good odds.
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