This study is a narrative review introducing global trends in patient safety education within medical schools and exploring the status of Korean education. Core competences for patient safety include patient centeredness, teamwork, evidence- and information-based practice, quality improvement, addressing medical errors, managing human factors and system complexity, and patient safety knowledge and responsibility. According to a Korean report addressing the role of doctors, patient safety was described as a subcategory of clinical care. Doctors' roles in patient safety included taking precautions, educating patients about the side effects of drugs, and implementing rapid treatment and appropriate follow-up when patient safety is compromised. The Korean Association of Medical Colleges suggested patient safety competence as one of eight essential human and society-centered learning outcomes. They included appropriate attitude and knowledge, human factors, a systematic approach, teamwork skills, engaging with patients and carers, and dealing with common errors. Four Korean medical schools reported integration of a patient safety course in their preclinical curriculum. Studies have shown that students experience difficulty in reporting medical errors because of hierarchical culture. It seems that patient safety is considered in a narrow sense and its education is limited in Korea. Patient safety is not a topic for dealing with only adverse events, but a science to prevent and detect early system failure. Patient safety emphasizes patient perspectives, so it has a different paradigm of medical ethics and professionalism, which have doctor-centered perspectives. Medical educators in Korea should understand patient safety concepts to implement patient safety curriculum. Further research should be done on communication in hierarchical culture and patient safety education during clerkship.
Caregivers ; Curriculum ; Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions ; Education ; Education, Medical, Undergraduate ; Ethics, Medical ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Korea ; Learning ; Medical Errors ; Mental Competency ; Patient Safety ; Professionalism ; Quality Improvement ; Schools, Medical ; Students, Medical

Scholarly article writing and publishing in international peer-reviewed journals can become an overwhelming task for many medical, nursing, and healthcare professionals in a university setting, especially in countries whose native language is not English. To help improve their scientific writing skills and publishing capacity, a university-based editing system and writing programs can be developed as educational platforms. These are delivered by a team of specialist editors composed of tenured faculty members who have a strong medical background and extensive experience in teaching courses on medical research, editing, writing, and publishing. For the editing system, the specialist editors provide comprehensive editing, personalized consultation, full editorial support after peer review, guidance with online submissions/resubmissions, and detailed editorial review at different stages of the manuscript writing. In addition, the specialist editors can develop writing programs such as medical writing and editing internships, academic courses in medical writing or research study designs and reporting standards, special interactive lectures and sessions on predatory publishing, seminars on updated editorial guidance of global editorial associations, academic visits on medical writing and editing, medical writing mentoring program, networking programs in scholarly communication, and publication resources in medical writing and scholarly publishing. These editing system and writing programs can serve as integrated platforms for improving scientific writing skills and publishing capacity by providing continuing education in medical writing, editing, publishing, and publication ethics.
Delivery of Health Care ; Education, Continuing ; Ethics ; Humans ; Internship and Residency ; Lectures ; Medical Writing ; Mentors ; Nursing ; Peer Review ; Publications ; Specialization ; Writing*

Every year in Korea about 50,000 terminally ill patients pass away in pain and more than 90% of the elderly oppose medical treatment to keep terminally ill patients alive. In medical ethics, the patient's right to self-determination is important, but he or she is unconscious or older and cannot express himself/herself, then his/her family should decide whether or not prolong treatment. From February 4, 2018, Hospice-palliative care and self-determination life sustaining decision-making Act will extend the life of the terminally ill patient. A specialist in the treatment of genitourinary cancer, focuses on prevention and treatment of cancer. However, by understanding this law, including terminology and how to implement of process of decision and stop life-sustaining treatment, a uro-oncologist has to counsel and perform education for terminally ill patients. A revision law has been forwarded to simplify the procedure. The Assembly should make haste with reviewing the law to help reduce the pain of terminally ill patients and their families.
Aged ; Comprehension ; Decision Making ; Education ; Ethics, Medical ; Hospice Care ; Humans ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Palliative Care ; Patient Rights ; Specialization ; Terminally Ill ; Urogenital Neoplasms

Western medicine was first introduced to Korea by Christian missionaries and then by the Japanese in the late 19th century without its historical, philosophical, cultural, social, political, and economic values being communicated. Specifically, during the Japanese colonial era, only ideologically ‘degenerated’ medicine was taught to Koreans and the main orthodox stream of medicine was inaccessible. Hence, Korean medical education not only focuses on basic and clinical medicine, but also inherited hierarchical discrimination and structural violence. After Korea's liberation from Japan and the Korean war, the Korean medical education system was predominantly influenced by Americans and the Western medical education system was adopted by Korea beginning in the 1980s. During this time, ethical problems arose in Korean medical society and highlighted a need for medical humanities education to address them. For Korean medical students who are notably lacking humanistic and social culture, medical humanities education should be emphasized in the curriculum. In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, human physicians may only be distinguishable from robot physicians by ethical consciousness; consequentially, the Korean government should invest more of its public funds to develop and establish a medical humanities program in medical colleges. Such an improved medical education system in Korea is expected to foster talented physicians who are also respectable people.
Aptitude ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Clinical Medicine ; Consciousness ; Curriculum ; Discrimination (Psychology) ; Education ; Education, Medical ; Ethics, Medical ; Financial Management ; Humanities ; Humans ; Japan ; Korea ; Korean War ; Missionaries ; Rivers ; Societies, Medical ; Students, Medical ; Violence

BACKGROUND: To provide a platform for the dissemination of basic knowledge of pain management, a WhatsApp group was created by residents and consultants. Common clinical scenarios, resident queries, and important instructions to be followed by residents with respect to running the Acute Pain Service were discussed in the group. This study evaluates the benefits of this interaction. METHODS: This study was approved by the hospital ethics board and was registered with the Clinical Trial Registry of India. Second- and third-year anesthesia residents were included in a WhatsApp group, along with consultants (board certified anesthesiologists with a special interest in pain). Pain knowledge assessment was performed pre- and post-discussion using a standard 22-point questionnaire. A feedback form, which included self-rated confidence scores (1–10, 10-most confident) and opinions about the 3-month WhatsApp discussion, was collected. Improvements in the documentation in clinical sheets post-discussion were also analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 38 residents were included in the WhatsApp group. An improvement in the percentage of correct answers from 69.1% (pre-discussion) to 73.6% (post-discussion) was observed (P = 0.031). Improvements in the self-rated residents' confidence levels were also noted (P < 0.05). A total of 37 residents felt that the WhatsApp-based discussion was useful. Documentation of the details of epidural blockade in clinical sheets improved from 30% to 100%. CONCLUSIONS: The WhatsApp discussion improved residents' knowledge and confidence levels, and also resulted in improved documentation of essential details in the clinical notes. This form of education is promising and should be explored in future studies.
Anesthesia ; Consultants ; Education ; Education, Medical ; Ethics, Institutional ; Humans ; India ; Pain Clinics ; Pain Management* ; Pilot Projects* ; Running ; Social Media

PURPOSE: This study was done to analyze nursing students' attitudes to life-sustaining treatment by measuring their awareness of biomedical ethics and resulting attitude toward withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. METHODS: This study was a descriptive research to assess the level of nursing students' awareness of biomedical ethics, attitude toward withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, and correlations between these variables. After the nursing students signed a consent form they were assessed. Data collection was done from September 1 to October 25, 2016, and analyzed using SPSS 23.0 WIM Program. RESULTS: There was a negative correlation and significant difference between nursing students' awareness of biomedical ethics and attitude toward withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. There was a significant correlation among attitude toward withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment and medical ethics, mortality ethics. CONCLUSION: The findings in the study indicate that it is necessary to provide nursing students with easy access to continuous education to help them establish an acceptable view of withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment.
Bioethics* ; Consent Forms ; Data Collection ; Education ; Ethics ; Ethics, Medical ; Humans ; Life Support Care ; Mortality ; Nursing* ; Students, Nursing

BACKGROUND: Candidate characteristics for hand surgery fellowship training remains unknown, as very little data is available in the literature. This study aims to provide information on the criteria that are employed to select candidates for the hand surgery fellowship match. METHODS: A 38-question survey was sent in April 2015 to all Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education recognized hand surgery fellowship program directors (n=81) involved in the U.S. match. The survey investigated factors used for the selection of applicants, including medical school, residency training, research experience, fellowship interview, and candidate characteristics. A 5-point Likert scale was used to grade 33 factors from “not at all important” (1) to “essential in making my decision” (5); or for five controversial factors from “very negative impact” (1) to “very positive impact in making my decision” (5). RESULTS: A total of 52% (42 out of 81) of responses were received from hand surgery fellowship program directors. The most important influential factors were interactions with faculty during interview and visit (4.6±0.6), interpersonal skills (4.6±0.5), overall interview performance in the selection process (4.6±0.6), professionalism and ethics (4.6±0.7), and letters of recommendation from hand surgeons (4.5±0.7). Factors that have a negative impact on the selection process include visa requirement (2.1±1.2), graduate of non-plastic surgery residency program (2.4±1.3), and graduate of a foreign medical school (2.4±1.1). CONCLUSIONS: This study provides data on hand surgery fellowship directors' perception on the criteria important for fellowship applicant selection, and showed that interview-related criteria and letters of recommendation are the important factors.
Accreditation ; Education, Medical, Graduate ; Ethics ; Fellowships and Scholarships* ; Hand* ; Internship and Residency ; Patient Selection* ; Professionalism ; Schools, Medical ; Social Skills ; Surgeons ; Surgery, Plastic

BACKGROUND: Candidate characteristics for hand surgery fellowship training remains unknown, as very little data is available in the literature. This study aims to provide information on the criteria that are employed to select candidates for the hand surgery fellowship match. METHODS: A 38-question survey was sent in April 2015 to all Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education recognized hand surgery fellowship program directors (n=81) involved in the U.S. match. The survey investigated factors used for the selection of applicants, including medical school, residency training, research experience, fellowship interview, and candidate characteristics. A 5-point Likert scale was used to grade 33 factors from “not at all important” (1) to “essential in making my decision” (5); or for five controversial factors from “very negative impact” (1) to “very positive impact in making my decision” (5). RESULTS: A total of 52% (42 out of 81) of responses were received from hand surgery fellowship program directors. The most important influential factors were interactions with faculty during interview and visit (4.6±0.6), interpersonal skills (4.6±0.5), overall interview performance in the selection process (4.6±0.6), professionalism and ethics (4.6±0.7), and letters of recommendation from hand surgeons (4.5±0.7). Factors that have a negative impact on the selection process include visa requirement (2.1±1.2), graduate of non-plastic surgery residency program (2.4±1.3), and graduate of a foreign medical school (2.4±1.1). CONCLUSIONS: This study provides data on hand surgery fellowship directors' perception on the criteria important for fellowship applicant selection, and showed that interview-related criteria and letters of recommendation are the important factors.
Accreditation ; Education, Medical, Graduate ; Ethics ; Fellowships and Scholarships* ; Hand* ; Internship and Residency ; Patient Selection* ; Professionalism ; Schools, Medical ; Social Skills ; Surgeons ; Surgery, Plastic

This article provides an overview of medical ethics education for practicing doctors in Korea, focusing on its aims, objectives, content, pedagogical methods, educators, and key issues and challenges for future development. Education on medical ethics for practicing doctors in Korea started relatively recently on a small scale, based on the initiative of a few specialty boards. Currently, no formal aims and objectives for medical ethics education for practicing doctors have been proposed, and no formalized curricula have been developed by any specialty boards or by the Korean Medical Association. In the educational programs that currently exist, lectures are the predominant teaching method, and only a few educators who are doctors specializing in medical ethics deliver all those lectures. Thus, there are many issues and challenges in the Korean medical environment that must be thoroughly investigated and overcome. Nevertheless, medical ethics is an integral part of the medical profession and should be taught at all levels of training, including undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate.
Curriculum ; Education* ; Ethics, Medical* ; Ethics, Professional ; Korea ; Lectures ; Specialty Boards ; Teaching

This article provides an overview of medical ethics education for practicing doctors in Korea, focusing on its aims, objectives, content, pedagogical methods, educators, and key issues and challenges for future development. Education on medical ethics for practicing doctors in Korea started relatively recently on a small scale, based on the initiative of a few specialty boards. Currently, no formal aims and objectives for medical ethics education for practicing doctors have been proposed, and no formalized curricula have been developed by any specialty boards or by the Korean Medical Association. In the educational programs that currently exist, lectures are the predominant teaching method, and only a few educators who are doctors specializing in medical ethics deliver all those lectures. Thus, there are many issues and challenges in the Korean medical environment that must be thoroughly investigated and overcome. Nevertheless, medical ethics is an integral part of the medical profession and should be taught at all levels of training, including undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate.
Curriculum ; Education* ; Ethics, Medical* ; Ethics, Professional ; Korea ; Lectures ; Specialty Boards ; Teaching