In the extreme environment of a concentration camp, economic payoffs played a relatively diminished role in motivating the doctors to conduct their barbaric research. For the most part, doctors working in the concentration camps who occupied an equivalent position of status, were motivated by similar goals. Moreover, the relative social status of the participating doctor was the driving force behind his particular involvement in prisoner medical experimentation in the camps. Hundreds of researchers including both medical, as well as research doctors conducted the experiments, however, for the purposes of this study, both types of professionals are classified by the term,“doctor.” These doctors can be subdivided into three groups indicating
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Both the Jewish and the gentile prisoner doctors primarily were motivated to participate in unethical medical research simply to increase their chance of survival, as well as the survival of their families, friends, or people with whom the prisoner doctors felt a connection. Next, the non-prisoner doctors held the middle degree of social status in the camps. The non-prisoner doctors were Germans, many of whom had become members of the Nazi party and were being rewarded for their membership. Further, some of the non-prisoner doctors were fresh out of training and looking for a promising start for their careers. Others were doctors whose careers had faltered for various reasons such as lack of ability, [PART OF THIS SENTENCE IS MISSIN????]were looking to restart their professional lives. Moreover, a few of the non-prisoner doctors were established, highly respected doctors hoping to secure government funding to create their own research institutes after the war, or to benefit from unrestrained access to human subjects, previously unavailable to the research community due to pre-war ethical constraints. …show more content…
For instance, by letting it be known that a prisoner was a doctor, that prisoner doctor could be chosen to help work in the medical experimental program. By participating, the Jewish prisoner doctor could avoid the sentence of death obtained in the initial selection process during which the vast majority of Jewish prisoners were chosen to be immediately gassed.13 Every subsequent action by the prisoner doctor in his role in the medical experimentation program was a further effort to control either his own, or others’ destinies through increasing his status. For example, by making oneself as indispensable as possible to the higher status doctors, a prisoner doctor could improve his own odds of survival, as well as his positively impact his fellow prisoners by prolonging or adjusting their treatment . Uniquely skilled prisoner doctors were used to train inexperienced or inept non-prisoner doctors and German medical students. A highly useful prisoner doctor would be granted benefits from the non-prisoner doctor under whom he worked, who was dependent upon the
Both the Jewish and the gentile prisoner doctors primarily were motivated to participate in unethical medical research simply to increase their chance of survival, as well as the survival of their families, friends, or people with whom the prisoner doctors felt a connection. Next, the non-prisoner doctors held the middle degree of social status in the camps. The non-prisoner doctors were Germans, many of whom had become members of the Nazi party and were being rewarded for their membership. Further, some of the non-prisoner doctors were fresh out of training and looking for a promising start for their careers. Others were doctors whose careers had faltered for various reasons such as lack of ability, [PART OF THIS SENTENCE IS MISSIN????]were looking to restart their professional lives. Moreover, a few of the non-prisoner doctors were established, highly respected doctors hoping to secure government funding to create their own research institutes after the war, or to benefit from unrestrained access to human subjects, previously unavailable to the research community due to pre-war ethical constraints. …show more content…
For instance, by letting it be known that a prisoner was a doctor, that prisoner doctor could be chosen to help work in the medical experimental program. By participating, the Jewish prisoner doctor could avoid the sentence of death obtained in the initial selection process during which the vast majority of Jewish prisoners were chosen to be immediately gassed.13 Every subsequent action by the prisoner doctor in his role in the medical experimentation program was a further effort to control either his own, or others’ destinies through increasing his status. For example, by making oneself as indispensable as possible to the higher status doctors, a prisoner doctor could improve his own odds of survival, as well as his positively impact his fellow prisoners by prolonging or adjusting their treatment . Uniquely skilled prisoner doctors were used to train inexperienced or inept non-prisoner doctors and German medical students. A highly useful prisoner doctor would be granted benefits from the non-prisoner doctor under whom he worked, who was dependent upon the