St. Joseph's Hospital (Syracuse)

If you are harmed by an error by a health care provider or a hospital like St. Joseph's Hospital, you should have an experienced attorney review your case. Not every error counts as medical malpractice. It is critical to consult an attorney experienced in litigating these cases about what happened to you. Your Syracuse medical malpractice lawyer can consult with credible experts about whether the error rises to the level of malpractice. At DeFrancisco & Falgiatano, our skillful and knowledgeable attorneys may be able to help you.

St. Joseph's Hospital provides a range of comprehensive inpatient and outpatient services. It has 431 beds and serves 16 counties in Central New York. The hospital also offers specialty services, such as emergency care, a birth center, dental services, and a psychiatric services center. The hospital has more than 800 physicians and dentists as medical staff. Thousands of health care professionals are also employed at the hospital.

Medical malpractice happens when a health care provider fails to abide by the accepted standards of the medical profession, and the deviation causes an injury or worsening of an illness. The health care provider can be a doctor, a hospital, a clinic, or another health care facility. You will need to show that you were receiving medical treatment from a health care provider while treating, diagnosing, or advising you, the health care provider deviated from the professional standard of care within that specialty or practice, and you were injured or your condition worsened as a result.

An example of improper medical care could occur during childbirth. For example, if an obstetrician fails to realize that an emergency C-section is needed, the baby could suffer brain damage or another birth injury because of lack of oxygen, or a mother could bleed excessively, requiring further treatment.

Sometimes an error involves a failure to conduct tests or diagnose a problem correctly. A failure to diagnose cancer, for example, can be based on multiple different errors. It may be a result of a failure to conduct a differential diagnosis, or a failure to adequately or properly test a diagnosis that is listed as a possibility in the differential diagnosis. If a doctor is shown a lump that should be biopsied, but the doctor fails to follow up to order the biopsy, this could result in the cancer progressing to a stage at which it cannot be treated at all, or the prognosis is worse and the treatment more painful.

Other potential errors can include prescription errors or failures to monitor the treatment appropriately. For example, a doctor who prescribes a medication to which your records indicate that you are allergic may have committed malpractice if you become seriously ill as a result of that medication.

A surgeon's error can be obvious, such as amputating the wrong limb, but it can also be subtle and only detected through a careful review of the medical records. For example, a surgeon who elects to do an improper procedure that causes further harm, or who fails to correct an obvious mistake made during surgery, such as a gash in an organ, may have committed medical malpractice for which an attorney can hold them accountable.

A health care provider can also be held liable for failing to inform a patient about the risks of a particular procedure. Medical procedures all have risks, and health care providers should let you know what the risks are so that if you consent, you know to what you are consenting. If a doctor fails to advise you of a risk, and the risk becomes a reality, causing injuries, you can sue for malpractice.

If you have been harmed due to negligence by a health care provider in a Syracuse facility like St. Joseph’s Hospital, our law firm may be able to help you recover damages from the responsible parties. Call us at 833-200-2000 or contact us via our online form to start discussing your potential legal options with an attorney.