ABSTRACT

The UK Defence Medical Services (DMS) have been deployed to Sierra Leone, where they have been part of the international effort to help those affected by the Ebola outbreak. This chapter discusses the findings of semi-structured interviews with up to 25 returning DMS staff (doctors, nurses and other allied health care professionals) exploring the ethical challenges they faced while on this deployment and while preparing the mission. The findings include a description of some ethical challenges experienced and those that were most difficult to respond to. As one of the aims of the research projects consists of using the experiences of those who deployed to produce materials that could be used in future ethics training for both military and civilian humanitarian responders going forward, an example of teaching material based around one of the issues explored in this chapter is included.