Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 15, 2025

Prehospital Thrombolysis: A Manual from Berlin
Published on: November 26, 2013
Prehospital emergency care in a humanitarian environment: an overview of the ethical considerations
Tim Prescott1,2, S May3, S Horne4,5
1Army Medical Service, Camberley, Surrey, UK timothywjprescott@gmail.com.
Abstract:
Recent history has demonstrated that UK Defence personnel can be used, potentially with little notice, in humanitarian disaster zones. The provision of prehospital emergency care (PHEC) in a humanitarian environment requires an innovative approach to overcome the technical challenges of a resource-limited setting. In addition to technical challenges, prehospital practitioners working in a humanitarian environment can expect to be faced with ethically testing situations that they are not familiar with in their usual practice. The organisational and individual ethical decision-making burden can result in significant harms. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to discuss the ethical considerations relevant to providing PHEC during a humanitarian disaster in order that personnel can be more prepared to optimally deliver care. This is a paper commissioned as a part of the Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Operations special issue of BMJ Military Health.
Related Concept Videos
Ethical Issues
Ethical Concerns in Healthcare:
Ethical Dilemmas II
Ethics and Bioethics
Nursing Ethical Principles II
Consider the following scenario, which illustrates how these principles are applied in the care of Mr. John, a fifty-year-old teacher diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer.
Initially, Mr. John's...
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation III: AED Use
Ethical Dilemmas I
Let us explore some examples to understand the potentially complex moral decisions nurses face.
Take the case of caring for minors, particularly in areas related to reproductive...

