Military Medical Ethics and Mental Health — from Cognitive Warfare to Moral Injury
The topic for our next workshop on military medical ethics has been chosen to be "Military Medical Ethics and Mental Health — from Cognitive Warfare to Moral Injury". The workshop will be held from 18-20 June 2026 in Vevey/ Switzerland.
The 2026 workshop will explore ethical aspects of cognitive and psychological dimensions in contemporary military operations. Our focus will be on the intersection between military medical ethics and mental health in the context of modern conflict.
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The fifth volume in the Military and Humanitarian Health Ethics series has been published. The book, entitled "Artifical Intelligence Ethics in Military Medicine and Humanitarian Healthcare" and edited by Bernhard Koch and David Winkler, is now available as a PDF and ePUB via Springer (LINK). The printed version is scheduled for publication imminently and will then be available via bookstores and online retailers.
This is the first book to examine the rising use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data in military and humanitarian healthcare, including the use of AI for diagnostic assistants, robotic surgery, and the general practice of medicine itself. Although AI and Big Data may simplify and improve a wide range of healthcare processes and procedures in very difficult situations, their use also raises a number of significant ethical challenges and dilemmas. These challenges are addressed for the first time in the contributions of this book, which derive from a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary forum on the topic held at Jongny, Switzerland in June 2024. The resulting volume offers the first and most authoritative examination of the use of AI for military and humanitarian healthcare. It also addresses resulting questions about leadership, values, and fundamental epistemological questions concerning AI. This volume is of interest to healthcare professionals, officers in the military, humanitarian aid workers, researchers, policymakers, and advanced students in the fields of medical ethics, military ethics, artificial intelligence, and the ethics of technology.
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We are pleased to announce that the Zurich Centre for Military Medical Ethics has developed material for scenario-based ethics training of military doctors. Presented as a serious moral game, it can be used to support training of ethical decision-making with a playful component. It also uses some of the scenarios presented in our collection here.
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The 3rd volume in the Military and Humanitarian Health Ethics series has been published. The book edited by Sheena Eagan and Daniel Messelken entitled "Resource Scarcity in Austere Environments. An Ethical Examination of Triage and Medical Rules of Eligibility" is now available as PDF and epub via Springer (LINK). The printed version is due to be published soon and will then also be available via your local bookstore or online book stores.
This book focuses on resource allocation in military and humanitarian medicine during times of scarcity and austerity. It is in these times that health systems bend, break, and even collapse and where resource allocation becomes a paramount concern and directly impacts clinical decision-making. Such times are challenging and this book covers this very important, yet, scarcely researched topic within the field of bioethics. This work brings together experts and practitioners in the fields of military health care, philosophy, ethics, and other disciplines to provide analysis on a variety of related topics ranging from case studies and first-hand experiences to policy and philosophical analysis. It is of great interest to to academics, practitioners, policy makers and students who are looking for analyses and guidance regarding the fair provision of medical care and the use of medical rules of eligibility under adverse conditions.
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We are glad to announce that the second volume of our book series on Military and Humanitarian Health Ethics is currently in production and should be available in book shops.
The new book is entitled Health Care in Contexts of Risk, Uncertainty, and Hybridity and contributors discuss various ethical challenges that military and humanitarian health care personnel (HCP) face while working in adverse conditions. Contexts of armed conflict, hybrid wars or other forms of violence short of war, as well as natural disasters, all have in common that ordinary circumstances can no longer be taken for granted. This affects the practice of health care as well as its ethics.
The book offers a panoramic overview on various ethical challenges healthcare faces in extraordinary situations and provides new insights from practitioners’ as well as from academic scholars’ perspectives.
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