Laboratory Malpractice

Often, the outcome of lab results is critical to a patient’s wellbeing. Health care providers are required to appropriately order, administer, interpret, and provide lab results to patients. Unfortunately, these providers do sometimes depart from the professional standard of care; laboratory malpractice can result in grievous harm. If you were harmed by improper procedures or interpretation of lab results, you should call the seasoned Syracuse medical malpractice lawyers of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano. The best results in litigation require counsel that understands how to present expert testimony and facts to a jury. We have more than thirty years of experience.

Laboratory errors can result in a worsening of medical conditions, or the development of medical complications. Detailed protocols are typically in place to avoid malpractice. However, mistakes that cause injuries do happen. Errors that could constitute laboratory malpractice in Syracuse include:

• Performing incorrect tests
• Misinterpretation of lab results
• Mixing up patient information or samples
• Mislabeling samples
• Failing to maintain appropriate records
• Excessive delays in testing patient samples
• Contaminating samples
• Recording of inaccurate information
• Failing to communicate results in a timely fashion.

There may be follow-up that’s not needed or medical procedures ordered that shouldn’t have been. If, for example, if you were diagnosed with a disease you didn’t have, you may have needed to undergo surgery and take medications with side effects that were difficult to manage. You may have suffered deleterious side effects due to taking a powerful drug that damaged your organs or created a problem with your health that otherwise would not have occurred. When you are not timely diagnosed with leukemia, for instance, the cancer may metastasize and spread, resulting in a poorer prognosis.

Lab errors can also be fatal. It may be appropriate to sue for medical malpractice if you were harmed by a lab error, but it’s imperative to retain an experienced attorney to take a look at the evidence and your situation and file the suit when it’s appropriate to do so.

Not all lab errors constitute medical malpractice. Rather, in order to establish medical malpractice, we will need to show: (1) a health care professional owed you a professional duty of care in performing lab work, (2) the professional departed from the duty of care owed under the circumstances, (3) this departure caused you harm, and (4) damages. In some instances, mistakes by multiple providers build on each other, causing injuries. Our firm will retain experts to make sure we identify all parties who could be responsible for the harm you suffered and bring them into the lawsuit as appropriate.

If you were harmed by a lab error and our attorneys can establish liability, you should be able to recover all damages including:

• Medical expenses
• Lost income
• Lost earning capacity
• Pain and suffering
• Loss of consortium
• Loss of enjoyment.

There are, sadly, instances in which a loved one dies because of a lab error. In that case, it may be proper to sue the lab for wrongful death.

In New York, only pecuniary losses can be recovered in a wrongful death lawsuit, but “pecuniary losses” does not mean only lost wages or medical bills. They can include:

• Funeral and burial expenses
• Medical bills incurred by the estate or family members
• Value of support and services to the family
• Earnings lost
• Value of parental care and guidance to children that survived the decedent
• Decedent’s conscious pain and suffering due to the final illness or injury.

If you were harmed or a loved one was killed by laboratory malpractice in Upstate New York, you should call DeFrancisco & Falgiatano. Our careers have been built around providing knowledgeable, tenacious representation when seeking justice for clients harmed by medical negligence and the like. We represent clients in Lowville, Rochester, Auburn, Watertown, Herkimer, Oswego, Wampsville, Canandaigua, Lyons, Ithaca, Cooperstown, Oneida, Utica, Binghamton, and Elmira. Complete our online form or call us at 833-200-2000 for a free consultation.