It has been determined by one medical journal that medical error is the third-leading killer of Americans behind only heart disease and cancer. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that in the first decade of the 2000’s one out of every 42 hospital admissions in North Carolina hospitals resulted in life-threatening injury or death due to medical error. It is always a shock to lose someone you love unexpectedly from medical malpractice. In North Carolina, medical providers are held to a high professional standard. When they make medical errors that cost people’s lives, doctors, surgeons, and other health care providers need to be held accountable.