Military Habitus vs. Medical Habitus: The Complicated Relation between Military and Medical Officers in the Medical Corps of the Dutch Army

Summary Background: In the Medical Corps of the Dutch Army, two categories of officers exist. These are medical officers and military officers. Experience has shown the relation between these two types of officers is complex, for example because lower-ranked military officers can be in the command of a higher-ranked medical officer. Furthermore, the military assignment to only take care of military casualties can conflict with the medical officer’s duty to provide good care for any patient. The main question of this thesis is: How can the complexities in the occupational relation between medical and military officers in the medical corps of the Dutch army be explained and to what extent can these complexities affect the decision-making process in medical units? Methods: A qualitative research was performed to get insight in the relation between military and medical officers. For this research, first a literature study was performed and a theoretical framework was created. The theoretical framework focusses on managing professionals in general, the concept of habitus, the military habitus and the medical habitus. Using the found insight from literature, a topic list was created and interviews were held with a total of 12 officers; working in different levels of the Medical Corps. On the basis of encoding, the transcribed interviews were converted to useful data and with help of a data matrix, the results were presented. Results: The relation between military and medical officers is complex and this research shows there are four possible causes for friction in the relation between medical and military officers: conflicting interests, culture, organizational aspects and hierarchy. To give insight in this complex relation the habitus of the two types of officers were looked into and it was found that the two habitus differ in most of the aspects that were looked into. The habitus differ among others in the area of their goals with regard to patient care, hierarchy and discipline; but especially in the area of culture. However, their habitus also slightly differ from the general military habitus and the civilian medical habitus, as described in the theoretical framework. It appears that military officers and medical officers working for the medical corps have their own specific habitus. Conclusions: The complexities in the relation between medical and military officers (conflicting interest, culture, organizational aspects and hierarchy) can be understood by their opposing habitus and the extent to which medical officers are embedded in the military organization. The complex relation can affect the decision-making process; a bad relation may result in an inferior decision. What is remarkable is that the two different types of officers have found a way to balance their conflicting habitus and work together; they do this by means of ‘tinkering’. This shows, however different, in the end the two occupational groups go together and there does not seem to be a bad relation that negatively affects the decision-making process.