“People have such hope in their doctor. It’s either that or God, and there’s no hope after that many times,” said the 35-year-old Mitchell, who was 16 when the first surgical error was made. “We need to educate ourselves to expect excellence from our doctors, but not perfection.”

Part of that education includes studying the ins-and-outs of the medical system to become as informed as possible about patients’ rights and responsibilities.

Mitchell offers nearly two dozen tips on how to help prevent the kind of fraud that led her to embark on a seven-year lawsuit against her surgeons that ultimately led to laws that better protect patients.

“If we had gotten second opinions from outside the medical community we might have discovered more,” she said. “And if a mistake happens, the state medical board needs to know about it, because maybe the doctor needs to take a class, because maybe he’ll make the same mistake on 30 other people.”

Mitchell stresses that she is not pro-lawsuit.

“If my doctors had come to me saying, `We made a mistake,’ I would never have sued them,” she said. “I would have put my arms around them and said, ‘Thank you for trying.’ But the fact is that they hid the mistake and it turned into medical fraud. When I saw the amount of deceit, it was blatant. It wasn’t just a mistake that was pushed under the carpet.”

Instead, the error was shoved into the darkest parts of a basement and hidden under lock and key. Medical records were altered and destroyed. X-rays came up missing. And the lies became deeper and darker.

“I think the statistics show that most people who have medical mistakes don’t sue, but the way I as an individual can help the system is by taking care of the temple of the Holy Spirit that God has given me, because he has given me responsibility for it,” she said.