Family Practitioner Malpractice

Often the first person you see when you have symptoms of illness or injury is a family care physician. Generally, family care physicians should conduct appropriate imaging studies and refer you to specialists if they are not able to adequately diagnose and treat you themselves. Unfortunately, some family practitioners make the mistake of not ordering images, not providing referrals, not following up to make sure a patient understands test results. While surgeons are sued more often than other providers, family practitioners may find themselves named in malpractice lawsuits in connection with a wide range of medical problems. If you or a loved one were harmed by family practitioner malpractice, you may be able to bring a lawsuit for damages. You should hire the experienced Syracuse medical malpractice lawyers of DeFrancisco and Falgiatano.

Family practitioners, like other healthcare providers, owe their patients a duty to abide by professional standards of care. A common reason attorneys sue family practitioners is failure to diagnose or refer. For example, if you have pain in your kidney area, your doctor may need to order imaging or refer you to a urologist. Another reason is delayed diagnosis. For example, if you suffer persistent headaches and imaging shows a number of brain and spine lesions, your neurologist may need to make a diagnosis so treatment can commence for multiple sclerosis or another medical condition; failure to do so may be malpractice. Less frequently, disease progression or failure to treat is the reason for a medical malpractice lawsuit brought against a family physician.

You may be able to hold a family practitioner liable for malpractice if you can show she owed you a duty of professional care that she did not meet and, as a result, you sustained injuries. The duty of professional care varies from situation to situation. In New York, your family practitioner will be held to the standard that applies to reasonably competent family practitioners in or around Syracuse.

If for example, a reasonably competent family practitioner in Syracuse would have referred you to a urologist, but your provider ignored your kidney imaging results, it may be appropriate to sue for damages.

For another example, if a reasonably competent Syracuse family practitioner would have called for imaging in response to your severe headaches and dizziness, but yours told you to take aspirin, and as a result your brain cancer progressed such that it was more painful and required more expensive care, you may have a basis to sue for damages.

Similarly, if your father's family doctor misdiagnosed him with constipation when, in fact, he had a serious bowel obstruction, and as a result of the misdiagnosis your father died, you may be able to sue for wrongful death.

In most cases, family practitioners are liable due to professional negligence, rather than intentional misconduct. If we can establish your family practitioner’s liability we may be able to recover compensatory damages to put you back in position you would have been in had the doctor responded to appropriately. Compensatory damages can include economic losses such as medical bills, lost wages, replacement services, and out-of-pocket costs. Noneconomic losses you may be able to recover include pain-and-suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment, and loss of consortium.

You may trust your family care physician to provide competent care for everything from a minor cold to a catastrophic injury. Unfortunately, like other doctors, family practitioners sometimes make serious errors that cause their patients harm. Medical malpractice lawsuits can be challenging because they require plaintiffs’ attorneys to consult with experts even before filing a case. These lawsuits may turn into battles between experts. It’s important to retain a firm that understands how to present technical testimony and evidence to a jury. If you sustained injuries due to family practitioner malpractice in Upstate New York, you should call DeFrancisco & Falgiatano. Our seasoned Syracuse medical malpractice lawyers sue negligent family practitioners in Utica, Canandaigua, Lowville, Rochester, Auburn, Watertown, Elmira, Herkimer, Oswego, Wampsville, Lyons, Ithaca, Cooperstown, Oneida, Binghamton. Fill out our online form or call us at 833-200-2000.