Ethical reflections of the military psychiatrist in operational status

The work here presented proceed to analyse the practice in operational status focused on main ethical tensions experienced by military psychiatrists. The problem is their large number come in an every time unprecedented meeting between medical bioethic principles and the contingences of a particularly contraignant framework. The subsequent ethical conflict has been investigated through a questionnaire addressed to the Health Army Service psychiatrists who have already an operational experience. One central point is the complexity of the military psychiatrist's position, when interests and perspectives can differ from their individual questioners: the patients, the peers and the command. This raises a challenge to preserve a space for reflection to provide the most favourable conditions to what can only be improvised in front of the unexpected and impossible to predict situations. This seems all the more necessary because what usually support the psychiatrist in his practice is lacking in operational situation, even though the urgency as well as in exceptional situation grew. This lack invite to a clinician's renewed creativity and inventiveness on the ground. (C) 2022 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.