Highland Hospital

Highland Hospital in Rochester was founded in 1889. It is affiliated with the University of Rochester Medical Center. Specialty practices at the hospital include total joint replacement, bariatric surgery, women's health services, maternity, geriatric care, prostate cancer treatment, and gynecologic oncology. Hospitals are places where life or death decisions play out on a daily basis. While you go to a hospital trusting that you will be properly diagnosed and given appropriate medical treatment for your symptoms, this is not always the case. Health care providers may make errors, some of them egregious, and these errors may cause you a loss of your ability to work, a deterioration of your relationship, and other harm. If you suspect that you were a victim of medical malpractice at Highland Hospital in Rochester, you should consult the Rochester medical malpractice attorneys at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano.

Medical malpractice occurs when a health care provider breaches the professional standard of care, given the circumstances, and this breach causes injuries to a patient. What does it mean to breach the professional standard of care? This means that the doctor or other provider deviated from the accepted standards and practices of the medical profession. The doctor did not do what a reasonable, competent provider in their specialty or field would have done under the same circumstances. For example, a gynecological oncologist who delays in diagnosing a second malignancy in a patient who is a cancer survivor may have committed medical malpractice. Similarly, a surgeon who does not obtain informed consent to perform a highly risky surgery that results in a patient's loss of function may be liable for medical malpractice.

Sometimes, defendants seek summary judgment in the course of a lawsuit. The goal of a summary judgment motion is to get the case terminated so that it will not go before a jury. A defendant asking for summary judgment in a medical malpractice case needs to make a prima facie showing that there is no triable issue of fact about the alleged deviation from the professional duty of care. In response to such a motion, your attorney would need to produce expert testimony about specific acts that constituted malpractice in order to raise a triable issue of fact. Essentially, we would need to show that a qualified and reliable expert believes that there were specific acts or omissions by the defendant that constituted malpractice. Often, medical malpractice lawsuits turn into battles about expert opinions and which side's expert is more credible. This is why it is important to retain an experienced attorney who works with credible experts who present well at trial.

One issue that can become important in medical malpractice lawsuits is who should be held responsible for the malpractice. Hospitals are usually not vicariously (indirectly) liable for malpractice by a private attending doctor who is not an employee. However, there is an exception when a patient comes to an emergency room seeking treatment from the hospital instead of from a particular doctor. Even if a hospital files a summary judgment motion and provides evidence that doctors and other providers were not employees, it may be possible to defeat the motion by raising a triable issue of fact about whether the hospital can be held vicariously liable for independent contractors working in the emergency room. Medical malpractice damages can vary greatly, depending on the harm that was done to the patient. They can include both economic and noneconomic losses. Economic losses may include wage loss, further medical expenses, replacement services, and out-of-pocket expenses. Noneconomic losses may include pain and suffering, mental anguish, lost earning capacity, scarring, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment, and loss of consortium.

For example, a patient who suffers spinal cord injuries as a result of a surgical error may require lifelong care, special medical equipment, and replacement of wages for the rest of his life. On the other hand, a model who experiences a botched cosmetic surgery may be able to recover for future revision surgeries to address scarring or disfigurement, along with the pain and suffering associated with having visible scars and the lost earning capacity and wage loss associated with not being able to work as a model again.

If you suffer from medical malpractice at Highland Hospital, you should consult the experienced attorneys at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano. We represent patients in Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton, Auburn, Elmira, Norwich, Cortland, Delhi, Herkimer, Watertown, Lowville, Oneida, Wampsville, Utica, Canandaigua, Oswego, Cooperstown, Ithaca, and Lyons. Call us at 833-200-2000 or contact us via our online form.