Military Medical Ethics for the 21st Century

As asymmetric ’wars among the people’ replace state-on-state wars in modern armed conflict, the growing role of military medicine and medical technology in contemporary war fighting has brought an urgent need to critically reassess the theory and practice of military medical ethics. Military Medical Ethics for the 21st Century is the first full length, broad-based treatment of this important subject. Written by an international team of practitioners and academics, this book provides interdisciplinary insights into the major issues facing military-medical decision makers and critically examines the tensions and dilemmas inherent in the military and medical professions. In this book the authors explore the practice of battlefield bioethics, medical neutrality and treatment of the wounded, enhancement technologies for war fighters, the potential risks of dual-use biotechnologies, patient rights for active duty personnel, military medical research and military medical ethics education in the 21st Century.

Contents: Introduction: military medical ethics in the 21st century, Michael L. Gross and Don Carrick; Part I Battlefield Ethics: Military medical ethics: experience from Operation Iraqi Freedom, Jacob Collen, Patrick O’Malley, Michael Roy and Laura Sessums; The doctrine of double effect, utilitarianism, and the treatment of civilian casualties, Marcus Schulzke; Civilian care in war: lessons from Afghanistan, Peter Olsthoorn and Myriame Bollen; The limits of impartial medical treatment during armed conflict, Michael L. Gross; Medical neutrality and the dilemmas of war, Paul Gilbert; Revisiting medical neutrality as a moral value and as a doctrine in international law, Yechiel Michael Barilan and Shlomit Zuckerman. Part II Military Medical Ethics and New Technologies: Enhanced warfighters: a policy framework, Maxwell J. Mehlman, Patrick Lin and Keith Abney; Refusing to be all that you can be: regulating against forced cognitive enhancement in the military, Lauren R. Robbins; Ethics and censorship of dual-use life science research, Michael J. Selgelid; Biosecurity and dual-use issues: the education module resource, Maria J. Espona; Psychologists, torture and SERE, Jessica Wolfendale. Part III Patient Rights, Research Ethics and Military Medical Ethics Education: Rights of British military patients during peace and war, Mike Gibson; Medical confidentiality in the military, Angus H. Ferguson; Accidents and experiment: Nazi chemical warfare research and medical ethics during the Second World War, Ulf Schmidt; Institutional review board specialization for non-lethal weapon research, Eric N. Erickson Jr; Hovering between roles: military medical ethics, Daniel Messelken and Hans Ulrich Baer; Medical education: teaching military medical ethics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Edmund G. Howe; Index.

Michael L. Gross is Professor of Political Science in the Division of International Relations at The University of Haifa, Israel. Don Carrick is Coordinator of the Military Ethics Education Network based in the Institute of Applied Ethics at the University of Hull, UK.