Cayuga Medical Center

Cayuga Medical Center is located in Ithaca, New York. It is one of the largest hospitals in the Finger Lakes Region with a total of 204 beds. It has an emergency room. Doctors can make errors that result in devastating consequences for patients. However, both doctors and hospitals may feign ignorance about the ways in which their mistakes caused you harm. Furthermore, not every mistake counts as medical malpractice. If you suspect that medical malpractice has occurred at Cayuga Medical Center, you should consult a Tompkins County hospital malpractice lawyer. At DeFrancisco & Falgiatano, our knowledgeable medical malpractice attorneys may be able to help you.

Mistakes at a hospital can result in serious injuries or even death. A failure to diagnose cancer, for example, can result in a patient worsening or dying. A failure to diagnose stroke can result in lifelong impediments. A misdiagnosis that symptoms indicate heartburn when they actually indicate a heart attack can result in death. In order to prove medical malpractice at Cayuga Medical Center, your lawyer will need to show that it is more likely than not that there was a doctor-patient relationship such that a professional duty of care was owed, there was a breach of the professional duty of care, and there was actual and proximate causation and actual damages.

It will be necessary to retain an experienced and credible expert to opine on what the professional standard of care was under the circumstances and how it was breached. The professional standard of care is the accepted practices of the medical community, but it can vary dramatically depending on the type of doctor that the defendant was, the individual characteristics of a patient, and the unique facts of the situation. A family care doctor would likely need to abide by a different standard of care from a board-certified oncologist. Moreover, when faced with a set of symptoms, the differential diagnosis is likely to be different when seeing a five-year-old boy than when seeing a 65-year-old woman.

Sometimes a doctor's or nurse's error can result in a patient's wrongful death. If a loved one died at Cayuga Medical Center, and you suspect medical malpractice, you should consult an experienced attorney. The personal representative of your loved one's estate may be able to sue for wrongful death, as long as the case is brought within two years of the death.

In New York, it is necessary to prove pecuniary loss to recover damages. For example, if your husband died because of a misdiagnosis of heart attack, it may be possible to recover his future lost wages. For another example, if your wife died because of a failure to diagnose breast cancer, leaving you to raise your three small children alone, you may be able to recover compensation for your loss of spousal services and for your children's loss of parental guidance. You may be able to recover compensation for your loved one's conscious pain and suffering prior to their death. For example, if a failure to diagnose breast cancer resulted in your wife suffering for two months in severe pain before passing away, you may be able to recover compensation for that pain and suffering. Unlike other states, New York does not allow people to recover damages for pain and suffering independent of financial losses.

You may have a viable cause of action against not only individual doctors or nurses who committed medical malpractice but also the hospital. Generally, you cannot recover damages from the hospital if you knew that a doctor was an independent contractor. However, under the doctrine of apparent authority, a hospital may be held liable for a doctor's negligence if they gave the impression of being an employee of the hospital.

If you have been injured because of preventable errors at Cayuga Medical Center, our medical malpractice lawyers may be able to help you recover damages from the responsible parties. Call DeFrancisco & Falgiatano at 833-200-2000 or contact us via our online form.