A court ruling handed down earlier this month on a botched operation at a hospital affiliated with the Jikei School of Medicine sheds light on the lack of ethics among some doctors. The operation led to the patient's death a month later.

The Tokyo District Court determined that three surgeons at Aoto Hospital in Tokyo did not have the minimum skills required for the operation and did not bother to control the bleeding. The court gave the doctors suspended sentences, since actual prison terms would have been unfair in view of the irresponsibility demonstrated by their supervisors. This ruling should remind doctors and hospital officials of the heavy responsibility they bear toward the lives of their patients.

The background of the case is appalling. The Nov. 8, 2002, operation on a 60-year-old prostate cancer patient required only a few incisions. But it was the first operation in which the three surgeons used a laparoscope -- a tube with a light and a camera lens. Unsure of what to do, they ended up consulting a manual during the operation and even phoning the maker of the device for help. The surgeons damaged veins near the prostate gland, causing massive blood loss, which led to brain death.