Research On The Military Medical Ethics Of Death

With the development of modern war, especially in which high-tech weapons are usedwidely, a large amount of dying patients occurs, which raises series moral questions ondeath for military doctors. However, systematic theory on death hasn’t been put forward inthe military medical ethics studies. This article try to analyze and retrospect the realisticchallenges, come up with the principles and criteria, and construct a basis for militarymedical death ethics.This article was divided into4sections.In section1, the authors introduce the related concepts in military medical death ethics.They put forward the concept for military medical death ethics from the layer of death, todeath ethics, and to military medical death ethics progressively. The core for militarymedical death ethics study is how military doctors treat the patients’ death.In section2, they systemize the progress of history in Chinese and abroad militarymedical death ethics. We divided them into stages following the historical characteristics insocial culture(especially death physiology), and the developing features in militarymedicine. For western military medical death ethics, the stages are ancient(600BC to the14th century AC), recent(middle14th century to the19th century) and modern(middle19thcentury to the21th century) times. For Chinese military medical death ethics, they areancient (770BC to the1840AC), recent(1840to1915) and modern(1915to the21thcentury) times. Finally, they conclude the current situations for both Chinese and westernmilitary medical death ethics.In section3, they state and analyze the realistic challenges for military medical deathethics. The right to die for wounded patients in the battlefield, the judge of death inwounded soldiers, battlefield euthanasia and battlefield terminal care are the four majorproblems in the field of military medicine. The authors note that collision of differentcultural dimensions, the trend towards military utilitarianism, and the insufficiency ofmedical resources contribute to this situation.In section4, they construct the death ethics of military medical death ethics withChinese characteristics. Military medical death ethics constructs its basis in theoretical andrealistic perspectives. For theoretical basis, they are Marxist concept of death, modern bioethics concept of death, and the vision of life and death in Chinese soldiers. For realisticbasis, they are the use and development of high-tech in wars, and the development andalteration of bio-tech. On the two bases, we put forward the principle for military medicaldeath ethics--the principle of awe, the principle of no trampling on life, the principle ofscientific concept of death and the principle of the equality of life and death. On the basisof the4principle, we conclude4practical approaches--devotion to the mission of militarydoctor, cautiousness to death; confronting death scientifically, allocating resources properly;adaptation to war, accomplishment in terminal care; being serious to cadaver, guardingmartyrs’ discipline.The construction of military medical death ethics satisfies the need for the developmentof military medicine and bioethics, which will contribute to the right management ofmilitary doctors in military actions. We expect our article can be conducive to theconstruction of military medical death ethics.