Introduction

The position of medical personnel serving in the armed forces is complex. Physicians and nurses are medical professionals with a strong professional identity based on medical norms, values, codes of conduct, and ethics. Yet, they are also members of the military. The central issue at stake is by which standards, ethics, and ideals healthcare personnel serving in the armed forces, holders of this double or hybrid medical-military professional identity, can abide while deployed on military operations, and whether this leads to problems. This introduction presents the central academic debate concerning physicians’ and nurses’ dual-loyalty to both professions and the alleged (in)ability of medical professionals to serve conscientiously within the armed forces. It identifies the main empirical gap in our knowledge to truly grasp medical personnel’s position in the military: an analysis of lived experiences. This book takes a historical, empirical approach to the topic to fill this hiatus and understand how physicians and nurses in the armed forces experienced ethical dilemmas in the context of military engagement in peacekeeping, stabilisation/combat, and humanitarian operations between 1990 and 2010.