Workshop on Military Medical Ethics: Issues Regarding Dual Loyalties

 Statement of Task

An ad hoc committee will plan and conduct a workshop that will feature invited presentations and discussions to examine ethical challenges for physicians and other health professionals serving in the military that arise from conflicts between their responsibilities to patients and their duties as military officers. The agenda for the workshop will include topics that would serve to delineate the scope of the issues, identify relevant models, and examine any gaps in current military medical ethics guidelines, training, and standards. The workshop will examine four central questions:

• Are there situations in which military medical ethics differ from the ethics of civilian medical practice? If such situations exist, how do the obligations of a military officer and a military health professional differ?
• What other models could be used to examine these conflicts (e.g., occupational health)?
• How do existing national and international standards of medical ethics apply to military physicians, and what is their relationship to national and international law?
• What are the ethical principles that guide medical practice for military physicians? Do these principles differ from those of the broader medical community?