Physicians being members of military organisations is a relatively new phenomenon and raises an interesting question: with whom, exactly, does the medical officer’s responsibility lie? The wounded solider who finds herself in an evacuation facility is clearly the patient of the attending physician and the prima facie responsibility of the physician is to restore health and preserve life and limb. However, the physician is also an officer of the military apparatus and it is not inconceiveable that the exigencies of the mission could be argued to take precedence over the health of any wounded soldier.
There are any number of physician-patient models that can account for this apparent conflict of role responsibility that the medical officer might find himself in. However, the question really is `which of these models is most appropriate morally?’ My particular concern is in attempting to construct a model within which the wounded patient’s autonomy is respected and the medical officer is not forced to abandon any central ethical aspects of his profession. A `hired gun’ model might provide all we need for explaining away the apparent conflict, but battlefield medicine is not cosmetic surgery (where this model is most often deployed). On the other hand, the patient is a soldier; with that role comes a (purported) diminished moral right to dissent.
