Failure to Diagnose Heart Disease Leading to Heart Attack or Stroke

It can be terrifying to experience a heart attack or stroke that could have been prevented had a doctor following accepted practices noticed and diagnosed and treated the symptoms. After suffering a heart attack or stroke, you may be confronted by large medical bills, lost wages, lost enjoyment of life, and other harms. You may not know where to turn. When a heart attack or stroke was preventable, it may be appropriate to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit. The Syracuse medical malpractice lawyers of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys may be able to represent you in a claim for damages based on your doctor’s failure to diagnose heart disease leading to heart attack or stroke. We have more than 30 years of experience representing injured plaintiffs and we’ve recovered more than $100 million in personal injury awards and settlements.

When you go to the ER or to see your doctor, you may be terrified. You may be worried that something is wrong with you, you may be trying to forestall death. While most doctors and nurses work their hardest to diagnose and treat patients, they sometimes make mistakes or act inappropriately, resulting in serious harm to a patient. Doctors and nurses are required to abide by a professional standard of care. In an around Syracuse, these are the accepted standards and practices of other health care providers in the same specialty.

Our Syracuse medical malpractice lawyers may be able to recover damages arising out of your provider’s failure to diagnose heart disease if we can establish his or her liability by a preponderance of the evidence. This means we will need to demonstrate it is more likely than not: (1) you were owed a duty to use reasonable care, (2) breach of the duty to use reasonable care, (3) causation, and (4) actual damages. Your provider departs from the professional duty to use reasonable care if he or she does not act as other reasonably competent providers in the same specialty would have under the circumstances when faced with a similar patient.

If you suffered a heart attack or stroke as a result of a doctor’s failure to diagnose heart disease in Syracuse or Upstate New York, such that you incurred damages, you may be able to recover damages in a medical malpractice lawsuit. These damages may be compensatory or punitive. Compensatory damages are those intended to make up for economic and noneconomic losses. Economic losses may include wage loss, medical bills, replacement services, and out-of-pocket costs. For example, if you are a politician who suffers stroke and you were no longer able to speak publicly for a living, you might sustain substantial wage loss. This may be one item of loss you could recover from a medical malpractice lawsuit. Noneconomic losses may include pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of consortium, and loss of enjoyment of life. For example, if your spouse suffered a stroke due to an ER doctor’s negligence and was therefore unable to have romantic intimacy with you, you may be able to recover loss of consortium in a lawsuit.

Punitive damages may be awarded if egregious misconduct by your provider resulted in you suffering heart attack or stroke. For example, if an ER doctor intentionally refused to care for you, knowing that triage procedures indicated you should be seen when presenting with particular symptoms, you might have grounds to recover punitive damages.

The medical malpractice lawyers of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys may be able to represent you in a claim for damages based on a failure to diagnose heart disease that leads to heart attack or stroke. We have more than 3 decades of experience representing injured patients and we’ve recovered more than $100 million in personal injury awards and settlements. We represent clients in Canandaigua, Rochester, Lowville, Oswego, Auburn, Watertown, Wampsville, Lyons, Ithaca, Cooperstown, Oneida, Utica, Binghamton, Herkimer, and Elmira. We have convenient locations throughout Upstate, New York to meet with our clients. Complete our online form or call us at 833-200-2000.