FAQs About Medical Malpractice Cases

The “standard of care” is the degree of care and skill that the qualified doctor would provide to a patient who sought medical care for similar symptoms and circumstances. If the doctor’s treatment of you fell below the “standard of care,” you may have a malpractice case.

In the consent form, the patient usually consents to the specific surgery as well as to any other procedures that might become necessary. Before you sign it, your doctor should give you a full description of the surgery and the risks involved, and the ramifications of not getting such treatment, as well as the common risks of the surgery. If you have a bad result from the surgery, and can prove that your physician misrepresented the facts or failed to adequately inform you of the risk of that result before surgery, and you would not have consented to the surgery if you had known the risk, you may have a claim for malpractice (“lack of informed consent”).

There are essentially two kinds of medical malpractice cases: The most common kind is where your doctor simply made an error or mistake causing you harm (e.g., failure to properly diagnose you, botched surgery, wrong prescription). The second, and less frequent kind, is where the doctor did not necessarily make any mistakes, but instead simply failed to tell you (“inform “ you) of the common risks or undesirable outcomes of a procedure or surgery. This is called “lack of informed consent”. For example, if you elect to have back surgery, and a known risk of the surgery is partial paralysis, and you end up with partial paralysis, but your doctor never told you about that risk, then you may have a “lack of informed consent” medical malpractice case. In order to win your lack of informed consent case, you will have to testify that, had you been informed of the risk, you would not have elected to have the surgery.

At Michaels Bersani Kalabanka, our medical malpractice attorneys get many calls from Syracuse and the surrounding areas who had a bad surgical result and want to sue their doctor. In general, there are no guarantees of medical results. Lots of surgeries have bad results, even when correctly performed. To show malpractice, you have to show more than just a bad result. You have to show that the bad result resulted from the doctor's deviation from the appropriate standard of care for your condition. In other words, you would have to show that the doctor was negligent, and that his negligence caused your bad result.

It depends. If your doctor's mistake was the result of negligence or failure to meet the expected standard of care, and his mistake caused you harm, then you have a malpractice cause. Lots of mistakes cause no harm, though, so a mistake alone is not enough.

"Failure to diagnose" means that your doctor completely overlooked your illness or condition that he should have been able to diagnose if he had followed the proper standard of care. He did not diagnose anything, when in fact he should have. For example, maybe he overlooked a cancerous growth clearly visible on an X-ray. “Misdiagnosis” is similar, except that the doctor did reach a diagnosis, but the wrong one. For example, he may have told you that you were suffering from a rectal hernia when in fact it was rectal cancer. It can mean that a doctor or physician did not diagnose a disease such as cancer. It can also mean that a delayed diagnosis caused delay in treatment, thereby increasing the patient's risk. Failure to diagnose and misdiagnosis are common grounds for malpractice claims.

No. They are often the hardest cases. Why? There are several reasons, but one of them is simply that juries tend to side with doctors. They like doctors. Statistically, a patient wins against a doctor only 1 out of 3 times in court. That’s why you need a very good malpractice lawyer on your side --- it increases your odds of beating your doctor in court. You are on the website of some of the best –contact us about your medical malpractice case for a free consultation.

No. The reason: Medical malpractice cases are very expensive to bring. This is mainly because the law requires you to have an expert medical doctor review the treatment you received and render an opinion as to whether there was malpractice. This medical review is very expensive, and it is even more expensive to have the expert testify at trial. A medical malpractice lawsuit general costs at least $10,000, and often much more, to bring. This does not include your lawyer’s contingency fee, but only the experts’ fees. Therefore reputable lawyers won’t take your case if you have suffered only minor injuries --- it does not make economic sense to do so because the jury award will likely be smaller than the expenses.

No. Your doctor will suffer some loss of pride, of course, but otherwise he or she will not pay any real consequences. His or her insurance will pay for the legal defense of the case, and will also pay the amount you recover from him or her in court, unless the amount you are awarded goes beyond the insurance policy limits. The job of a medical malpractice lawyer – in Syracuse or anywhere – is not to “punish” the doctor, or anyone, but rather to get just compensation to the victim.

Don’t count on it. Medical malpractice cases are much less likely to settle than other types of cases? Why? First, most malpractice insurance policies give the doctor (the insured) “veto” power over any settlement --- in other words, the doctor has to ok the settlement. But many doctors don’t want to settle, because they feel it will be perceived as an admission of guilt. Also, medical malpractice insurers want to discourage malpractice lawsuits, and therefore often prefer to make you, and your attorney, go all the way through trial --- they make you work for your money! Finally, since doctors and their insurers both know that they win on average 2 out of every 3 times, they are likely to want to take their chances at trial rather than settle. For all these reasons, you had better be prepared to go to trial on your medical malpractice case --- and you had better have a lawyer who is prepared to do so, too.

It depends on the complexity of the case and on whether you are still receiving active treatment to get better. If it is a complex case, and if you are still treating, the case may take years. In any event, from start to finish a medical malpractice case usually takes at least a year and a half to get to trial.

It depends on several factors. First, if the medical malpractice caused you to suffer a permanent, significant injury or condition, with a lot of pain or loss of enjoyment of life, or a very bad prognosis, then your case is worth much more than if you suffered only a small, minor injury or loss. Second, if your case is a “slam dunk”, i.e., it is very clear that your doctor committed an egregious error, then your case is worth more than if it is a close call as to whether he or she malpracticed you. Other factors weigh in, too. Contact us to find out more.

Essentially, yes. The same rules apply in each.

The birthing process is dangerous, and unfortunately, medical mistakes here are all too common. The most common birth injuries include: Erb’s palsy, cerebral palsy, brain injuries, shoulder dystocia, seizures, meconium aspiration, fetal distress, excessive bleeding, brachial plexus injuries and stillbirths.

Cerebral palsy is a disorder that affects the child's ability to control his or her own movement caused by injury to the cerebrum, the largest portion of the brain.

Excess stress to the newborn’s neck during delivery may injure the nerves causing paralysis of the arm. An “avulsion rupture” means the nerves are torn away at the area of the spine. “Neuroma” means the nerves are torn, but during the healing process, scar tissue forms. This can disable the arm. All these are usually initially caused by a shoulder dystocia (shoulder of infant gets stuck in the birthing process). This in turn can cause "brachial plexus" injury as well as "Erb’s palsy" and even death. Shoulder Dystocia is also dangerous for the mother; it can cause excessive bleeding, vaginal or cervical lacerations, or rupture of the uterine. There are safe techniques for dislodging the infant’s shoulder, including Woods-screw, Rubin, Gaskin (“all-fours”), and McRoberts maneuvers.

Umbilical cord entrapment or compression, electively long labor, breech, fetal distress, problems with vacuum extractor or forceps, delays in treating infections, shoulder dystocia, bleeding or lack of oxygen experienced by mother or infant, delay in decision to do cesarean section, bacterial meningitis and viral encephalitis, and inadequate medical care during pregnancy.

You should suspect medical malpractice where some of the following are present: Infant had low APGAR scores; Low umbilical cord blood gas; Infant had blue skin color upon birth; An emergency Cesarean Section (C-Section) was performed; Baby needed to be resuscitated after birth,; Presence of meconium (fecal matter) on the baby's body or in the amniotic fluid; Baby was placed in Intensive Care Unit.; Floppy baby (poor muscle tone and/or poor sucking response); Baby was not delivered within 24 hours of water breaking.

Contact us today for a free consultation if you suspect medical malpractice.

An experienced malpractice lawyer knows how to carefully review the medical records, including the neonatal records, the fetal heart monitor strip, labor and delivery records, and the newborn records. If medical malpractice occurred, evidence of it is usually present in some or all of those. If your lawyer suspects, from his review of these, that malpractice may have caused your baby’s birth injuries, he will have a highly qualified specialist physician review them to render an opinion as to whether malpractice occurred and whether such malpractice caused your child’s injuries.

Other types of birth injuries include: Spinal cord trauma, cranial nerve trauma, depressed skull fractures, facial paralysis, temporary paralysis of other parts of body, strep infections (group B), intracranial hemorrhage, cephalohematoma, discoloration or swelling of the scalp, forceps marks.

Medical malpractice claims, and particularly birth injury claims, are often the most complex and demanding of injury claims. Your lawyer needs to be an “expert” not only in the law, but also in the medicine, medical terminology, and standard medical practices for delivering babies. These kids of claims often go to trial, so your lawyer needs to be experienced and skilled in the Courtroom, too.

Contact us today for a free consultation! We will let you know whether you have a case.

Contact Michaels Bersani Kalabanka today. We will answer your questions and discuss your case.