New York Medical
Malpractice Lawyers

The term “medical malpractice” refers to when a certified and legal medical provider fails to uphold a “standard of care,” resulting in harm to the patient.

Some of the most common examples of medical malpractice in New York include:

• Delayed diagnosis that causes worse symptoms or death
• Giving a patient the wrong medicine
• Prescribed medication that makes original symptoms worse
• Surgical errors such as leaving a foreign object in the patient’s body
• Misreading or ignoring laboratory results
• Performing unnecessary surgery
• Disregarding a patient’s medical history
• Prescribing defective medication
• Hospital liability (ie. improper emergency room care, failure to have qualified medical personnel on call
• Nursing home malpractice
• Chiropractic malpractice

One of the areas medical malpractice law varies from state to state is on the statute of limitations. Each state sets its own time limits on how long a patient can wait before filing a claim. In New York you have up to two-and-a-half years to file a medical malpractice claim.

This means that if you have a medical procedure, are seriously injured and the doctor or hospital did not provide the proper standard of care, you have only two-and-a-half years to contact a medical malpractice attorney and file a claim. There are a few exceptions such as:

• If the facility where the error occurs is state run, the statute of limitation is less, you only have 90 days to file a claim.
• If you fall under the Discovery Rule, when a foreign object was left in your body, you have one year after the object was discovered even if the surgery occurred outside the statute of limitations.
• If you were a child when the medical error occurred, under most circumstances, the time limit clock does not start running until you turn 18.
• If the medical error occurred as part of an ongoing course of treatment then the time clock doesn’t begin until the course of treatment ends.

Examples of injuries caused by medical malpractice include, but are not limited to:

• Anesthesia-related injuries (improper intubation / oxygenation)
• Birth & obstetrical injuries (Including children’s erb’s palsy, brachial plexus injuries, and cesarean section injuries
• Cardiac injuries (ie. cases where symptoms were not taken seriously or properly monitored by doctors due to the rarity of a heart attack happening within certain age groups)
• Post-operative infections
• Over-radiation injuries for benign tumors
• Transplant of non-compatible organ
• Maternal deaths from birth
• Neurological injuries such as strokes
• Vision loss or blindness after NON-eye surgery

Call an expert medical malpractice lawyer in your area for a free consultation, and ask if your injuries or symptoms make you eligible to file a claim.

Filing a medical malpractice lawsuit can be complex. There are two primary issues you need to prove and both are equally important:

1. You need to prove that a malpractice-level mistake happened. You will need to prove that the error was outside “the standard of care.” Which means, if you were injured and the healthcare professional did not perform the generally accepted method of care for your condition taking into consideration factors such as your age, you may have a case.
2. Prove that some type of serious injury was caused by the mistake. Not only do you have to show that a doctor or hospital staff member breached the standard of care, you also have to prove that this error directly caused your injury.

Filing a medical malpractice suit can be an overwhelming and time-consuming process. The strict burden of proof and the time limits set in New York State make it important to contact an experienced attorney.

If you or a loved one has experienced a serious injury at the hands of a doctor or a member of a hospital staff, the medical malpractice lawyers at Sobo & Sobo can help by proving negligence on behalf of the medical professional(s) involved, keeping you updated throughout the process, and maximizing your settlement for all related damages, pain and suffering.

An average of 17.3 medical malpractice claims are paid per 1,000 physicians each year in New York.

These cases are particularly common in New York’s urban areas including New York City’s Inwood-Washington Heights neighborhood, the Bronx, as well as more populated Hudson Valley towns such as Newburgh and Poughkeepsie.