Malpractice or ordinary negligence
Not every injury in a hospital or clinic is treated as medical malpractice. Courts in New York sometimes have to decide whether a claim turns on medical judgment, which calls for professional standards and clinical review, or on an ordinary lapse that anyone could recognize, such as a spill left on a hallway floor. The answer can change the filing deadline and what has to accompany the complaint. Patients rarely know which side their situation falls on, and the wording of a hospital's incident report does not settle it. We look at that question early, because it shapes the steps that follow.
Care delivered by a team
Much of modern care is carried out by nurses, technicians, pharmacists, and aides whose names may not appear on the discharge summary. A medical negligence claim often depends on piecing together who was responsible for a task at a given hour, such as a medication dose, a fall precaution, or a call to the physician on duty. Shift schedules, medication administration records, and nursing notes usually tell that story better than a physician's notes do. Whether a facility answers for a staff member's conduct often depends on the employment relationship, which is not always what it appears to be. Requesting those records early, before schedules are archived and memories fade, makes the later review sharper.
Beginning with what you hold
Keep the documents you already have: discharge instructions, pill bottles and pharmacy labels, bills, and any letters the facility sent about the incident. If the error involved a medication, leave the packaging and label as they are. Photographs of visible injuries taken soon after the event are often helpful. If you want to set down your own account, do it after we talk and at our request, so that it is prepared for your lawyer rather than for whoever might later ask to see it. In a first conversation we work out what kind of claim this appears to be, which deadlines may apply, and which records to request first.
