Fulton Medical Center

Fulton Medical Center was purchased in 2017 by EmpowerHMS, which specializes in rural and critical access hospitals. It is owned and operated now by Callaway Community Hospital. Most people trust and expect that when they have a medical complaint or problem, they will leave their doctor in a better position than they were prior to the visit. Unfortunately, doctors sometimes make errors that result in patients suffering devastating harm and even a wrongful death. If you believe that you may have been a victim of medical malpractice at Fulton Medical Center, you should call the Syracuse medical malpractice attorneys at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano. Not every mistake is medical malpractice, but an experienced attorney may be able to determine whether there is a viable claim for damages.

Medical malpractice can happen in connection with many different situations, including a failure to diagnose cancer, a delay in diagnosing stroke, a failure to conduct a differential diagnosis that would have revealed appendicitis, medication mistakes, amputating the wrong limb, surgical mistakes, a failure to treat an illness properly or at all, a failure to obtain informed consent, or a failure to conduct a C section in order to avoid birth injuries and maternal injuries. Plaintiffs hoping to win medical malpractice cases must establish the following elements: (1) a doctor-patient relationship, (2) the defendant's failure to act in accordance with the professional standard of care, (3) actual and proximate causation, and (4) damages. These elements must be shown by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning that the events that the plaintiff says happened more likely than not did happen.

Usually, it is necessary to retain a credible expert witness to establish the professional standard of care, a breach of this standard, and causation. Generally, the professional standard of care is made up of the accepted standards and practices of the medical community. It can vary depending on the individual characteristics of a patient, the health care provider's role, and the specific situation or set of events. For example, the professional standard of care that should be applied to a doctor's differential diagnosis of a teenage girl's claims of a strange feeling and chest pain may be different from how she reacts to a 50-year-old male's similar claims.

An attorney usually will retain an expert witness whose background is similar to the defendant's. For example, if the issue is an oncologist's failure to diagnose cancer, we may retain a board-certified oncologist to opine on what the professional standard of care was, how the oncologist breached it, and causation. The expert witness should be credible and capable of explaining complicated medical issues to a jury. However, there are rare situations in which an expert is not necessary because the medical malpractice is clear to a layperson without expert testimony. For example, if you are undergoing a procedure to have your arm amputated, and the doctor amputates your leg instead, this should be clearly negligent to a jury.

One type of medical malpractice is a failure to obtain informed consent. Your physician is supposed to advise you of the risks related to a particular procedure or operation. If they did not advise you of the risks, you did not give your informed consent to it. If one of the events constituting a risk arises, you may have a medical malpractice claim. To establish your right to recover compensation, your lawyer would need to show that you would not have had the procedure done had you known of the risks that were not disclosed.

If you are able to establish liability in a medical malpractice lawsuit, you may be able to recover compensatory damages. These can include both economic and noneconomic losses. Economic losses may include medical expenses, lost wages, out-of-pocket costs, and replacement services. Noneconomic losses may include pain and suffering, mental anguish, and loss of consortium.

If you have been injured or a loved one has died because of medical negligence at Fulton Medical Center, our law firm may be able to help you recover damages from the responsible parties. DeFrancisco & Falgiatano represents victims in Syracuse, Rochester, Binghamton, Auburn, Elmira, Norwich, Cortland, Delhi, Herkimer, Watertown, Lowville, Oneida, Wampsville, Utica, Canandaigua, Oswego, Cooperstown, Ithaca, and Lyons. Call us at 833-200-2000 or contact us via our online form.