If a commanding officer issues an order that conflicts with a doctor in the military when it involves a patient under the doctor’s care does the doctor’s orders trump all commands someone higher in rank might give?
Is it part of official rules or more of a tradition?
Kinda wordy but hopefully the meaning is taken.
E.G. General Patton demands Soldier-X gets back out there and fights and the doctor tells General Patton to piss off, Soldier-X will stay in bed.
Yes, the injured is assessed by a medical evaluation board. Unless they declare someone “fit for duty” that person cannot be ordered to active duty.
http://www.realwarriors.net/active/disability/disability.php
What happens if a “medical evaluation board” is not available? E.G. A battlefield situation? Does it take an actual doctor to trump orders or can a field medic suffice?
If a soldier is sick enough for the medic to rate them as not ‘fit for service’, especially in a battlefield situation, they probably wouldn’t be very useful on the front line, so a sensible officer would not order them to report there. (Assuming most military officers are sensible, which I don’t have knowledge to claim.)
The gnneral rule for the British Navy in (the second world) war, was that decisions are made by commanding off8icers, working on the advice of advisors.
A similar rule still aplies in every court system I know of: if the matter comes to court, the court will decide if you are sick or not, taking into account any evidence offered.
For doctors in both situations, the rule is/was the same: you don’t decide, you don’t tell the court/your commanding officer what to decide, you offer evidence and opinions on which the court / commanding officer will make a decision.
It’s interesting to see above that the American military is apparently in principle more restricted now than the American court system is.
With regard to Naval aviation, the Flight Surgeon has 100% control over a pilot’s fitness to fly.
When I read the thread title I immediately thought of the Star Trek scenario of a doctor insisting the Captain temporarily relieve himself of duty and having some power to enforce this.
Based on comments in this thread, and after googling, this thread, yeah it’s not something that happens in the US navy / other armed forces.
A medical officers power to relieve a senior officer by declaring them medically unfit for duty is a real power, not something that a Trek writer dreamed up. The RN has/had it, (one of the Hornblower novels deals with it)
A doctor would have to justify him/herself later to a board on inquiry.
Well interesting things still happen, when I was in the Army I dislocated my shoulder multiple times and when it wasn’t coming out of the socket it was prone to constant subluxation while just walking and swinging my arm at my side. It was painful and very inconvenient. I really felt I needed surgery I was having a lot of issues with that arm, I had an MRI done and I had torn my anterior labrum and also done some type of damage to my rotator cuff. Apparently even though I felt I needed this surgery and the orthopedic surgeon who was a Major thought I needed the surgery I needed approval from my Company Commander (Captain). I pestered the Captain about it as minimally as I could but he kept being evasive and wouldn’t give me a straight answer. Finally the day before the surgery I told my Captain he had to give me an absolute answer one way or the other and he told me he wouldn’t sign off on it.
I relayed this information to the Major/Surgeon and he started cussing about my Captain over the phone about how an OR had been reserved and all that jazz. I’m still not sure who to blame, maybe the surgeon didn’t fill out some needed form making this surgery necessary or maybe the Army failed me for giving the Captain with no medical training too much control over my health issues. Eventually I did get the arthroscopic surgery two years after the initial dislocations after the Commander at my new company approved it. The Surgeon who was the same guy from before told me he felt that the tissue was too thin to work with after two years of waiting and if he could have gotten me in sooner I would have had a good outcome. As it was my shoulder felt secure and tight again initially after the surgery but then started doing all the same old stuff again after a few months.
I med-boarded from the Army a while after this and my only option now is open shoulder surgery to fix the problem and I just might go through with it eventually but I’ve had three surgeries related to another medical issue in the last three years so I’m not really in a big rush to go through another.
Always avoid the Flight Surgeon. The best you can hope for in any visit is to break even.