According to a National Academy Institute of Medicine study, each year more people die from medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents (43,458), breast cancer (42,297) and AIDS (16,516). A Harvard Medical School study found that over 5% of all hospital patients were injured as a result of medical malpractice.

Did you lose a loved one due to malpractice, or has your child experienced birth injury or birth defects? Are you unsure if an injury was caused by medical negligence? As experienced New York Medical Malpractice Attorneys, our focus is on the representation of injured patients in cases such as:

• Birth Injury
  
• Birth Defects
  
• Medication Errors
• Dangerous Drugs
• Gastric Bypass
• Hospital Negligence
• Anesthesia Errors
• Brachial Plexus Palsy
• Cancer Misdiagnosis
• Cerebral Palsy
• Erbs Palsy
• Plastic Surgery Errors
• Psychiatric Malpractice
• Surgical Errors

The New York Medical Malpractice Lawyers of Oshman & Mirisola focus our practice on the entire state of New York, including New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess, Ulster, Putnam and Syracuse.

How Large Is The Problem of Medical Malpractice?
Medical malpractice is a much greater problem than most people realize. Each year, in the United States, approximately 80,000 people are dying due to medical malpractice, and many more adults, children and infants are injured. While these medical malpractice statistics are alarming, it is even more disturbing that these statistics do not even include medical malpractice deaths that have occurred in clinics, private doctors offices, or other treatment facilities.

What Is Considered Medical Negligence?
Medical Malpractice occurs when there is a deviation from the accepted standard of care in the community or locality where the doctor or hospital is located. An injury is considered medical malpractice, not because of unforeseen complications, but rather if the complications were the result of improper care and treatment. By failing to properly diagnose an illness or condition, such as cancer, in a timely manner can be considered medical negligence.

As skilled New York Medical Malpractice Attorneys, we achieve exemplary results in birth injury, birth defect and other medical malpractice cases through years of experience and by hiring the finest lawyers, para-professionals, investigators and experts in the legal community. Our staff has represented thousands of clients during the course of more than 35 years in practice, with recoveries equaling or exceeding $1,000,000 being a common occurrence.

We have outstanding reputations throughout the region, are highly experienced litigators and are recognized by the legal community. This excellence is exemplified not only in the results we obtain for clients, but through court appointment in complex plaintiff case management committees, radio appearances, newspaper articles, bar association membership, speaking engagements and philanthropic organizations.

If you or someone you know in New York State, including New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess, Ulster, Putnam and Syracuse, needs the assistance of an experienced New York Medical Malpractice Attorney, call Oshman & Mirisola LLP today at 866-615-0401, or complete the contact form provided on this site to schedule your initial consultation.

Medical Malpractice:
Medical malpractice is the failure of a health care provider to follow the accepted standards of practice of his or her profession in the community where the service is rendered. If a physician was careless, lacked proper skills, or disregarded standardized rules resulting in injury to a patient, a jury may find the health care provider liable for negligence. Hospitals can also be held liable for the negligence of their employees, including staff nurses and technicians.

Examples of Medical Malpractice include:

• Failing to diagnose a tumor while reading an X-ray
• Puncturing a nearby organ or tissue during surgery
• Failing to order necessary and appropriate medical tests
• Failing to diagnose a condition in time to treat it properly
• Failing to refer a case to a medical specialist
• Prescribing incorrect medication
• Brain Injury
• Birth Injury
• Cerebral Palsy
• Incorrect diagnosis that results in a failure to treat a medical condition
• Failing to properly administer anesthesia
• Emergency room negligence
• Dental Malpractice
• Cosmetic Surgery Malpractice

Birth Defects:
Between two and ten percent of all birth defects are the direct result of using OTC or prescription medications during pregnancy. There are three ways that medications can cause birth defects:

• They can do direct damage to the fetus, causing abnormal development.
• They can compromise the function of the placenta, often by constricting blood vessels and reducing the supply of oxygen and nutrients from the mother to the fetus. This can lead to underdevelopment or low birth weight, which are risk factors for birth defects.
• They can trigger forceful uterine contractions, potentially injuring the fetus or prompting premature birth.

If you took a medication during pregnancy, which caused birth defects in your child, you may be eligible to seek compensation for your past and future medical bills, expenses, pain and suffering, and more.

Environmental contaminants such as chemicals and industrial products are responsible for causing approximately ten percent of all birth defects.

If your child suffered birth defects because of prenatal exposure to environmental hazards or maternal exposure to chemicals in the workplace, you and your child may be able to seek compensation for your economic losses, cost of medical treatment, and pain and suffering.

Birth Injury:
Statistics show that approximately 27 out of every 1,000 births involve some sort of birth related injury, with cerebral palsy as one of the most common. Although most women give birth in a hospital surrounded by medical professionals, a birth injury can happen at almost any point during labor and delivery. These injuries are most often the result of medical negligence or error. A baby with a birth injury may recover fully and quickly, or may suffer lifelong physical and/or mental limitations.

During the course of labor and delivery complications can occur which result in various health problems for a newborn. Collectively, these problems are referred to as birth trauma or birth injuries. Birth injuries are generally caused by operative deliveries, whether vaginal or abdominal, and are affected by circumstances such as:

• Oxygen deprivation, which can occur when the umbilical cord is compressed or twisted in the birth processor when the unborn fetus chokes on it’s own meconium (fecal material comprising the first feces of the newborn, which can be released either just prior or just after birth)
• Mechanical trauma when an unusual position is adopted by the baby at the time of delivery or when the baby is too large to readily pass through the birth canal, as frequently occurs, with diabetic mothers
• Mistakes made by any of the numerous participants on the delivery team. These mistakes can occur prior to delivery, at the time of delivery or immediately after delivery. They include events the use of excessive force or improper rotational force in the delivery process, delaying the performing of a cesarean section (C-section) delivery during fetal distress, failure of a midwife to seek the assistance of an obstetrician, and improper intubation (insertion of a tube) of a newborn requiring oxygen which results in hypoxia (insufficient amounts of oxygen reaching body tissue).
• Improper or incomplete pre-natal testing/monitoring that can result in a medical team unprepared for a difficult delivery. These include conditions such as a high birth weight baby (over 9 pounds), peculiarities relating to the size and shape of the mother’s pelvis, and an improperly positioned fetus, all of which can be detected through the use of a sonogram.

While thankfully none of these scenarios necessarily means that there will be a birth injury, they complicate the labor and delivery process, providing a statistically greater probability of occurrence. In most cases a baby with a birth injury will make a full recovery. When circumstance are such that a full recovery does not occur however, birth injuries can be devastating, frequently causing debilitating injuries for the newborn which can last a lifetime.

The most common birth injuries are cerebral palsy, oxygen deprivation, mental retardation, Erb’s Palsy, Klumpke’s Palsy and Brachial Plexus injuries. The ability to file a medical malpractice claim when birth injuries are of a permanent nature provides the possibility for both the newborn and its family to recover monetary damages for:

• Past and future medical expenses
• Past and future loss of earnings
• The cost of future care (i.e., aides, devices, counseling, physical therapy, tutoring)
• Conscious pain and suffering
• Loss of services

Cerebral Palsy:
Cerebral palsy, also called Littles disease or static encephalopathy, is a group of chronic disorders impairing control of movement that appear in the first few years of life. Cerebral palsy was first noticed in children in the first years of their lives back in 1860. An English surgeon named William Little wrote about an unknown disorder that caused stiff, spastic muscles in their legs and their arms. The children with the observed difficulties did not get any better or any worse as they aged. That documented condition was called Littles for many years but is now known as spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy.

Cerebral palsy was once thought to be the result of a lack of oxygen during birth. Other suggestions continued to surface because the children with the cerebral palsy had other problems like mental retardation, visual disturbances, and seizures. Until the 1980s it was still believed that birth complications caused most cases of cerebral palsy until scientists analyzed data from a government study and found that less than 10% of the cerebral palsy births were due to birth complications.

Cerebral palsy affects the nerves that regulate and control the body's muscles. The literal meaning of the word cerebral is the brains two halves and palsy describes any disorder that impairs control of body movement. When there is faulty development or damage to motor areas, as in cerebral palsy, it disrupts the brains ability to control movement and posture sufficiently.

Misdiagnosis:
Sometimes medical professionals negligently misdiagnose a patient. Misdiagnosis and delayed treatment of a medical condition can have debilitating effects on a patient and in some cases misdiagnosis can be fatal. We rely on medical professionals to provide knowledgeable information and competent diagnoses. When patients suffer from negligent healthcare or the misdiagnosis of a serious medical condition they deserve answers.

Lung Cancer:
The key to successful treatment of lung cancer is early diagnosis and many medical mistakes can lead to a delay in diagnosis which may deprive patients of the chance for a cure. Failure to diagnose lung cancer or significant delay in diagnosing the disease can result in a medical malpractice lawsuit. Delays in diagnosis may cause a worsening of the illness and are often a result of:

• Failure to order chest x-ray, CT scan and MRI procedures
• Failure to adequately evaluate the results of the above
• Failure to recognize the symptoms that characterize lung cancer and diagnose it in time.

Wrongful Death:
A wrongful death occurs when a person is killed due to the negligence or misconduct of another individual, company or organization.  One of the most frequent causes of wrongful death is medical malpractice. A legal action for wrongful death belongs to the decedent's immediate family members, usually a surviving spouse and children, and sometimes parents.  Under certain circumstances, unrelated minor children living with and supported by the decedent may also bring a claim for wrongful death. In order to bring a successful wrongful death cause of action, the following elements must be present:

• The death of a human being caused by another's negligent or intentional conduct.
• The survival of family members who are suffering the loss of financial support, love, care, comfort, supervision, guidance, household assistance and general society previously provided by the deceased.

The general rule in wrongful death cases is that one is entitled to recover both economic and non-economic damages which are suffered as a result of the loss of a loved one. Economic damages in a wrongful death case include an award for the financial contributions which the decedent would have made to his or her spouse, children and/or parents had he or she survived. It also includes the recovery for funeral service expenses in memory of the decedent and for burial cost. Non-economic damages include loss of love, society, companionship, comfort, affection, solace or moral support.

Defective Drugs or Products:
The sad truth is that some giant pharmaceutical companies and a handful of medical device manufacturers have put the public at risk by bringing dangerous or defective products to market. A medical product may be considered defective because of a manufacturing or design defect. In addition to design and manufacturing defects, insufficient warning of consumers as to possible side effects can also serve as the basis of litigation for both medical products and drugs.

Often, when a person is injured as a result of medical treatment, the first assumption often is that the physician or other health care provider made a mistake. In many cases, however, it is learned that the doctor did nothing wrong and the injury was caused by a defective or dangerous medication or medical device. In such a case, the claim for injuries should actually be brought against the manufacturer of the drug or device.

Anesthetic Errors:
When you go in to surgery, the last face you usually see is that of the anesthesiologist, who will regulate your consciousness during the operation. The anesthesiologist is responsible for maintaining you in a state somewhere between awake and dead throughout the length of the procedure. Too little anesthesia and you will awake to great pain and panic; too much anesthesia and you will never wake up. When anesthesiologists make errors in administering anesthesia, the results are usually catastrophic, including coma and death.

Wrong Treatment:
The wrong treatment given by a medical professional because of his or her negligence is medical malpractice. The doctor may prescribe the wrong medication for the patient or the incorrect dosage and complications can arise. There are many cases that where the patient had to suffer because of wrong diagnosis and treatment - things such as a left leg being amputated instead of right leg, or wrong kidney operation, wrong eye operation or being treated for flu when it was something else.

Failure to Diagnosis:
Failure to diagnose is a term in the medical and legal communities that represents the failure of a medical provider to detect a condition before serious or fatal consequences. In many instances, particularly those involving cancer, early detection is a key element to successful treatment.  A missed diagnosis can make treating a disease much more difficult, and in some cases, render successful treatment impossible.

When the failure to diagnose is negligent on the part of the medical provider, if the provider using a reasonable standard of care should have detected the problem sooner, a medical malpractice claim might be appropriate.

These cases are generally traumatic for all involved, the patient as well as the family members who have to try to deal with a future that might have been quite different if only a cancer or another medical condition were diagnosed in time.

Breast Cancer:
Patients may complain of a lump, mass or cyst in one of their breasts during a doctor’s visit, or the physician may notice a lump during an examination. When permitted to grow unimpeded, the cancer spreads and can completely devastate a person's life. Sometimes physicians fail to take such patient complaints seriously or to properly follow up with additional diagnostic tests, including mammograms, sonograms and biopsies.

It is the responsibility of treating physician and technicians to provide adequate medical care for their patients, including correctly interpreting symptoms, ordering follow-up tests in a timely manner and correctly reading test results. The failure to take the proper precautions, and to perform each of the procedures correctly, as other medical personnel would have done, is medical malpractice.

Medication Errors:
Another area of medical malpractice involves the medication and prescription errors doctors, nurses and pharmacists can make. Unfortunately, patients are sometimes given the wrong prescription or dosage, with very serious, often deadly, results.

Medication errors can happen for several reasons, such as the doctor’s illegible handwriting, the pharmacist’s drug dispensing error, the nurse giving the wrong medication or amount, or the doctor not asking all of the pertinent questions while examining the patient. Most commonly, the type of medication error involves not the type, but the does. If the dose is too little, the medication is ineffective. If the does is too much, the medication may have side effects and other consequences.

Also, if a patient is taking more than one medication, it is the healthcare provider’s responsibility to monitor his or her drug intake. A mix of the wrong medications can be fatal in some cases. If a doctor or nurse is especially careless, they won’t test for or ask about allergies, which can lead to serious injury or death.

Nursing Home Neglect:
Nursing home neglect includes medical malpractice and careless treatment leading to broken bones, malnutrition, dehydration, bedsores, bruises and poor hygiene. It can also include the failure to supervise staff and physical or sexual assaults by other residents or staff.

The number of doctors who care for nursing home patients is inadequate. But this does not give doctors and other health care providers the right to ignore or not fully care for nursing home patients. The truth is that a small minority of medical doctors do not provide the same level of care to someone who is elderly and in a nursing home than they would to other patients.

Surgical Errors:
Surgical errors that cause injury may give rise to medical malpractice claims. Surgical errors can result in permanent disfigurement and complications due to post surgical infections. The following are some examples or surgical errors:

• Wrong-site surgery - operating in or on the wrong area of the body.
• Surgical instrument left in the body - retractors, sponges and surgical towels all have been left in patients’ bodies following surgery.
• Misdiagnosis issues, such as surgery unrelated to the patient's correct diagnosis.
• Wrong patient surgery.

Adverse Drug Reactions:
Adverse drug reaction is defined as a medical event caused by a prescription drug which results in a patient's death, hospitalization or disability, or has caused a congenital abnormality, a life-threatening event, or a required intervention to prevent permanent damage. Up to 200,000 patients die every year from adverse drug reactions, according to reports from the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Institute of Medicine. Adverse drug reactions are considered to be the 4th leading cause of death in America, killing more people than pulmonary disease, diabetes, AIDS, pneumonia and automobile deaths.

If you or someone you know in New York State, including New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess, Ulster, Putnam and Syracuse, needs the assistance of an experienced New York Medical Malpractice Attorney, call Oshman & Mirisola LLP today at 866-615-0401, or complete the contact form provided on this site to schedule your initial consultation.

If you or someone you know in New York State, including New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and the counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess, Ulster, Putnam and Syracuse, needs the assistance of an experienced New York Medical Malpractice Attorney, call Oshman & Mirisola LLP today at 866-615-0401, or complete the contact form provided on this site to schedule your initial consultation.

ADDRESS OF THE FIRM:
Oshman & Mirisola LLP
42 Broadway, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10004
Telephone: 866-615-0401
Fax: 212-964-8656

MEMBERS OF THE FIRM:

Theodore Oshman

EDUCATION:

• Brooklyn Law School, Brooklyn, New York, 1981

BAR ADMISSION:

• New York, 1981
• New Jersey, 1981