As the movie M-A-S-H makes chillingly clear, war, the killing art, and medicine, the healing art, are fundamentally incompatible. Whether to patch the wounded soldier so that he may live to kill again or be killed presents an ethical dilemma to some doctors. Because of this dilemma, Dr. Howard Levy, inducted into the U.S. Army Medical Corps, chose to serve three years in prison at hard labor rather than teach dermatology to a group of Green Berets (TIME, June 9, 1967).
For the psychiatrist in uniform, the problem can be even more distressing. Within the spirit of his profession, how can he...
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