Medicine, War & Bioethics Credits: 5

Catalog description

This course considers the continually evolving relationship between medicine, war, and the arts, from the slaughter of the American Civil War (1861-65) to today's conflicts in Iraq. Our focus is on the extraordinary difficult medical and ethical decisions faced by physicians in times of war, and the ways in which those experiences are reflected in the arts. Topics include the effects of disease on armies, biological warfare, the development of ambulance and hospital services in the Civil War, battlefield medicine, the diagnosis and treatment of shellshock victims in WWI, chemical warfare, the pioneering of plastic surgery, triage techniques in WWII, nuclear warfare, and the personal experiences of physicians in the Vietnam and Iraq wars.