It’s no stretch to say we have an undying trust in our healthcare professionals to keep us healthy and to maintain our well-being.

They train for a decade or two, swear an oath, and we feel at ease giving free rein over what they should to do when addressing our health concerns. That’s why no one wants to discover that a doctor has done something to cause their health to decline.

That’s what happened to a Las Vegas resident, when doctors discovered he had been living for a decade with a 57-inch metal wire running from his chest to his thigh.

During an angioplasty procedure in 2005, the doctor removed two-thirds of the wire for the procedure, but failed to remove the remaining one-third as claimed by the plaintiff in what had become a lawsuit for medical malpractice. And after a week-long trial, the plaintiff was awarded 1.8 million according to reports by Las Vegas Review Journal.

As much as we do place our trust in doctors, it’s important to know that medical malpractice is not a completely out-of-the-ordinary phenomenon. Also, in 2015, Nevada ranked 19^th in medical malpractice lawsuits in the country.

And while the idea of medical malpractice being a regular occurrence is hard to hear, one should know it’s something that occurs for various reasons that are “a part of being human” including: fatigue from working long hours, poor record keeping, along with depression and burnout. This unfortunately leads to many malpractice case-types including wrong-site surgery, misdiagnosis of an illness, and in the case above, leaving surgical instruments inside a patient.

If you feel you are a victim of medical malpractice, it’s important to get educated on what constitutes a good case so when you seek out an attorney, you can accurately state your case in a manner that a potential representative can form a compelling argument if your case does go to trial.

You can find out more here.