Research on medical ethics Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

On medical ethics - Research Paper Example The present usage of best-practice anti-malaria drugs, optimal forms of pilot training in high-G environments, and some forms of optimal fitness training for the soldiers are also examples of the end results of military medical research. Ethics has always been an integral component of every walk of life. The profession of arms, like any profession, lays down codes of conduct for medical too that bind members of a ship, a regiment, or a squadron, or an entire service or nation. Many tenets of military medical ethics at the national or international level are understood as the Laws of War, most formally codified in the Geneva Conventions. (Pearn, 2005, 10) By contrast, at the individual level, issues of medical ethical import are a recent phenomenon. (Day, 2005, 349) Military dictates of discipline, control by line of command, and the subservience of any individual rights for the greater aim-all are themes that, at least in the historical context, have made medical ethics questions irrelevant. The core doctrines on which the discipline of medical ethics is built beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice often represent the antithesis of what service members are required to do. (Gillon, 2004, 186) Historically, a parallel system of loyalty, respect, courtesy, and chivalry has evolved to form an alternative modus operandi that binds those who command to those who obey. According to Pearn (2006) since the Second World War, and specifically since the Nuremberg Trials of 1945 and 1946, the medical ethics responsibilities, indeed some medical ethics rights, of service members have been specified. The International Military Tribunal was established by the London Agreement of August 8, 1945. Representatives from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union (and with the provisional membership of France) formed the Tribunal. Subsequently, 19 other nations accepted the provisions of its