Medical complication and medical error are distinct entities; both inevitably occur. This lecture and discussion will engage both topics in the context of institutional/organizational ethics and responsibility, pertinent law, and medical ethics generally. The lecture will draw from the scholarship of a virtue ethics paradigm that affirms the absolute and abiding sacredness of every life, and of the internal morality of medicine as guiding principles. We will consider the scholarship of Pellegrino, Kaldjian, Curlin, and others.