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According to a study conducted by Martin Mackay, a professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, medical errors account for more deaths of Americans than accidents, strokes, respiratory disease and Alzheimer's, among other diseases.  In fact, the only causes of deaths in America that are higher than medical errors, which account for 251,000 American lives per year, are heart disease and cancer.  This number of deaths per year by medical errors is equivalent to 700 deaths per day due to malpractice.  To put it another way, of all the deaths in the United States each year, 9.5% are due to medical malpractice.

 Medical malpractice is not defined as any bad outcome after going to a hospital or doctor's office.  Medical malpractice means that a patient received care that was below the standard that a reasonably competent doctor would have given in that situation.  Proving malpractice in New York means the injured patient must hire experts that review the records and sometimes examine the injured patients and conclude that the medical care and treatment was not up to the standards, and that because of this, the person was injured as a result.  This can be an expensive and slow process and is not a simple task that can be learned by watching a video or reading a brochure. 

Yet, unlike with heart disease and cancer, there are no campaigns or fund-raising efforts to raise awareness and to defray the significant costs of medical malpractice.  Examples of this could be the pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness or designating February as American Heart Health month.