When you go to a doctor with symptoms, you probably hope that he or she will diagnose and treat you according to the applicable professional standard of care. Unfortunately, doctors and other health care providers do make mistakes that can result in significant harm to patients. When a health care provider fails to abide by accepted practices, it may be appropriate to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit. However, medical malpractice lawsuits involving cancer can be challenging. It is crucial to retain a seasoned attorney who understands which procedural requirements must be met, how to work up a medical malpractice case, and how to present what happened to a jury. The Upstate New York cancer lawyers at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano understand how to establish the right to recover damages in medical malpractice lawsuits.
Types of CancerWith many types of cancer, it is critical to catch the cancer early so that treatment can commence. Some forms of cancer do not have symptoms until the disease progresses, but other cancers cause numerous symptoms. For instance, blood in the urine may be an early sign of bladder cancer, and your doctor should take your report of the symptom seriously. Without treatment, the cancer may progress to later stages, when it is much more difficult to treat or is untreatable. Your doctor may need to develop a differential diagnosis to rule out cancer. Types of cancer that could lead to medical malpractice claims include endometrial cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, bladder cancer, skin cancer, and ovarian cancer.
LiabilityTo establish that a health care provider should be held accountable for a failure to diagnose or treat cancer, a cancer attorney in Upstate New York will need to show by a preponderance of the evidence that your provider owed you a professional standard of care, your provider departed from the professional standard of care, and this caused damages. Mistakes that could constitute a departure from the professional standard of care include misdiagnosis, failure to diagnose, failure to accurately interpret a test result, failure to treat, treatment errors that resulted in radiation damage, or a chemotherapy-related illness. Suppose that, for instance, your general practitioner failed to take your family history when a reasonably prudent doctor would have taken a family history, and therefore missed that your grandmother had died of breast cancer. If the general practitioner simply dismissed a lump in your breast as benign without doing further testing or referring you to a specialist, you may have a claim for medical malpractice.
New York follows the locality rule. Under this rule, the court will look at whether your doctor acted in accordance with what a reasonably prudent health care provider in the same geographic region would have done when faced with the same or similar circumstances. For example, your doctor’s determination of the stage of your cervical cancer can be critical to determining proper treatment. If your doctor delayed in diagnosing your cervical cancer when a reasonably prudent doctor would have made the diagnosis sooner, our Upstate New York cancer attorneys may be able to help you bring a lawsuit for medical malpractice.
DamagesThe severity of the harm that you experienced will determine your damages in a medical malpractice lawsuit. The recoverable damages may be economic and non-economic. Economic losses may include the costs of surgery or other cancer treatment, lost wages, out-of-pocket costs, and replacement services. For example, if your doctor misdiagnosed colorectal cancer, and the cancer progressed so that you needed to have your rectum removed and a colostomy bag placed, you may be able to obtain the costs of surgery, follow-up care, lost income, and replacement services. Non-economic losses are intangible losses that the jury believes would naturally flow from the kind of harm that you suffered. They can include pain and suffering, lost earning capacity, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium, and mental anguish.
Consult a Knowledgeable Attorney for Your Medical Malpractice ClaimIf you suspect medical malpractice related to cancer diagnosis or treatment, you should talk to the Upstate New York attorneys at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano. We represent cancer patients in Syracuse, Rochester, Lowville, Ithaca, Lyons, Oswego, Wampsville, Cooperstown, Oneida, Auburn, Binghamton, Canandaigua, Watertown, Elmira, Utica, and Herkimer. Call DeFrancisco & Falgiatano at 833-200-2000 or use our online form to contact a cancer lawyer in Upstate New York.