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Ethical Components of the Malpractice Case Name Institution Ethical Components Case Summary and Ethical Issues In this essay, the focus is on a case whose hearing took place at the Intermediate Court of Appeals of Hawaii. Doctor Robert Ricketson was accused of negligence in the way he handled his former patient, Arturo Iturralde. January 24, 2001, Dr. Ricketson carried out tests on Arturo's spine and concluded that the patient needed spinal fusion surgery. The surgery was set for January 29th, and the materials ordered for the operation arrived at the hospital (HMC) on 27th, but they were not crosschecked to confirm that everything had been included. On the day of operation, Dr. Ricketson carried on with the surgery but later realized that some Titanium rods were missing from the package. The rods were due to arrive 90 minutes later, but feeling that the delay was risky for the patient, he decided to use a screwdriver shaft as a replacement, a decision which proved to be costly as the patient later passed away due to related injuries. The medical practitioners’ policies strictly state that the availability of all tools and instrumentations must be confirmed before carrying out any operation (Meyers, 2017). Arturo's family was awarded $5.6 million as compensation following a court decision that found Dr. Ricketson and HMC guilty of negligence. Ethical Component Ethical dilemmas are part of a physician's life. Sometimes there is a thin line between what is wrong and what is right when dealing with patients (Canady, 2016). Initially, Dr. Ricketson had breached the medical rules and even HMC's policies by not confirming that all the instrumentations were
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