The history of medicine has been continuously devaluated in medical education but its importance should not be ignored as for other medical humanities. The educational value of the history of medicine could be summarized as follows ; it allows the students 1) to understand the humane aspect of medicine by telling them how medicine has dealt with human health-disease phenomena in each era of the human history. 2) to improve the professionalism by recognizing that medicine is a profession with a long tradition that dates back to the Hippocratic era 3) to improve current medical practice by understanding the limitations and uncertainties of medicine. 4) to understanding the historical changes of the disease phenomena 5) to develop the basic competence of learned intellectual. 6) to integrate the tradition of their own institutions with themselves.

'Social competence' is understood in behavioral science and developmental psychology to be a bundle of diverse social skills that are necessary for appropriate social adaptation. However, a physician's social competence in our healthcare context should be understood as clinically necessary skills that are not directly related to understanding of the natural sciences essential for clinical practice. In Korea, such 'non-science competencies' have long been ignored by both doctors and laypeople in their understanding of medicine as a discipline. However, the clinical practice should embrace the centrality of humane and social elements, without which medicine could not exist. Our research team has proposed 6 competencies in light of the current Korean healthcare context and circumstances: understanding of the related law and healthcare system, professionalism and ethics, leadership, self-management, communication, and understanding of the humanities. These competencies are important to current medical practice in Korea and should be developed and promoted among doctors in the present and future. Of course, these competencies are not absolutely fixed or unchangeable. They should be re-interpreted or modified as time passes and the healthcare context changes. However, for the time being, these competencies will provide some guidance for educating doctors and promoting dialogue among related stakeholders in the healthcare field.
Behavioral Sciences ; Delivery of Health Care ; Ethics ; Humanities ; Humans ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Leadership ; Mental Competency ; Natural Science Disciplines ; Psychology ; Self Care

A recent High Court's decision regarding the withdrawal of life supporting medical treatment (artificial ventilator) from an elderly female patient in the terminal stage has opened up a new era of the "euthanasia dispute" in Korea. With this decision, the legitimate withdrawal of life supporting treatment became possible under certain conditions and the Korean Medical Association is working toward the establishment of practical guidelines for the terminal-stage patients. However, there are still very few debates on the cases of pediatric patients in the terminal stage or suffering from fatal diseases. For pediatric patients, the core principle of autonomy and following procedure of "advance directives" are hardly kept due to the immaturity of the patients themselves. Decisions for their lives usually are in the hands of the parents, which may often bring out tragic disputes around "child abuse", especially in Korea where parents have exclusive control of the destiny of their children. Some developed countries such as the U.S.A., the U.K. and Canada have already established guidelines or a legal framework for ensuring the rights of the healthcare system regarding children suffering from severe illness, permitting the withdrawal of Life supporting medical treatment (LSMT) in very specific conditions when the quality of life of the children is severely threatened. For the protection of the welfare and interest of the children, we should discuss this issue and develop guidelines for the daily practice of pediatricians.
Aged ; Brain ; Brain Death ; Canada ; Child ; Delivery of Health Care ; Developed Countries ; Dissent and Disputes ; Ethics, Medical ; Euthanasia ; Female ; Hand ; Human Rights ; Humans ; Korea ; Parents ; Quality of Life ; Right to Die ; Stress, Psychological

Contemporary medical ethics is far from the traditional concept of "In-Sul (benevolent art)" or "Yul-Li (ethics)", which emphasizes so much the personality or the character of a doctor. Nowadays, medical ethics should be considered as "professional ethics" which regulates the acts and medical practices of ordinary doctors in their daily practice. The key concepts of the professional ethics are "autonomy", "integrity", and "professional standard" established by medical organizations such as medical societies or associations. Most of Korean doctors have not been familiar with the concept of professional ethics or professionalism, which is due to the modern history of Korea. However, the concept of professional ethics is really critical to Korean doctors from the perspective of professional dignity and social respect to this profession. The current healthcare system of Korea is suffering from many problems of both private and public sector. Nonetheless, the professional ethics is urgently demanded for that very reason.
Delivery of Health Care ; *Ethics, Medical ; *Ethics, Professional ; Humans ; Physician-Patient Relations

The medical professionalism for faculty members of medical schools has some different implication from other medical professions. They have to work as educator, researcher, and manager as well as clinician. The professionalism of each duties has its own uniqueness, which sometimes causes a conflict between them. Therefore, the faculty members of medical schools have to harmonize their different tasks and duties each other, looking after the professional development through the professional life.
Conflict of Interest ; Education, Medical ; Hospitals, University ; Korea ; Schools, Medical

Koreans' traditional view on death has been much influenced by Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and shamanism since ancient times. Confucianism emphasizes the importance of the real life in this world and highly praises doing good deeds for the family and the community. It also praises people who are enlightened by education and self-discipline. Confucian scholars admit that death cannot be understood by rational thinking although it is unavoidable as a cosmic order. Taoism sees life as the same entity as death; Both are two different aspects of the same cosmos or the wholeness. However, the disciples of Taoism became much interested in a long life and well being that may be achieved by harmonizing with the cosmic order. Buddhism thinks that death and life are an "illusion". It says that people can be enlightened by recognizing the fact that "Nothing is born and nothing is dying in this world. Everything is the product of your mind occupied with false belief." However, secular Buddhists believe in the afterlife and metempsychosis of the soul. This belief is sometimes connected with the view of the traditional shamanism. Shamanism dichotomizes the world between "this world" and "that world". After death, the person's soul travels to "that world", where it may influence life of people who reside in "this world". And shamans who are spiritual beings living in "this world" mediate souls and living people. In conclusion, there are various views and beliefs regarding death, which are influenced by a number of religions and philosophies. They should be seriously considered when making a medical decision regarding the end of patients' life.
Buddhism ; Confucianism ; Humans ; Philosophy ; Religious Philosophies ; Republic of Korea ; Shamanism ; Thinking

Human Research Protection Program (HRPP) is a special program to promote the basic human rights and welfare of the human subjects enrolled in the medical research conducted in Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital. The program also plays an important role in protecting the researcher and the hospital from any complaints or blames of the human subjects and in making sure the good quality of the research itself scientifically as well as ethically. For the purpose, HRPP is running a special committee and center-Human Research Protection Center (HRPC). The HRPC provides counseling and consulting for the human subjects and researchers, and educational programs for the researchers are also offered. In addition, the center conducts audit and monitoring of the human research in collaboration with the Institutional Review Board. To conduct an ethically and scientifically sound research, researchers should fully understand the function of HRPP, affirmatively work together with HRPP, readily participate in any educational program required for the human researcher, and keep the rules and guidelines regarding human research well.
Cooperative Behavior ; Counseling ; Ethics Committees, Research ; Female ; Human Rights ; Humans* ; Running

This study aims to correct the Chinese characters of 普救女館 (Po Goo Nyo Goan) and its Korean pronunciation by re-examining the circumstances around the establishment of this hospital, and to discover its naming principle which is associated with the Confucian political philosophy of the Joseon Dynasty. Although 普救女館 is the first modern women's hospital in Korea, most historical studies of this institute have been conducted on limited documents and records. Many published studies use the incorrect names in many ways, so the correct name of the hospital is still in confusion.普救女館, however, was named with four or five of the Chinese characters given by the Joseon government (King Gojong (高宗)) at the time of its establishment. The Joseon government gave the name of Seonnyeoboguwon (善女普救院) to the first modern women's hospital established by Mary Scranton, the name of which was changed to 普救女館.Some records left by the female missionary doctors who worked in 普救女館 show the romanization and meaning of the name of the hospital. The romanization of 普救女館 clarified the Korean pronunciation of “女 (nyeo)” at that time. English translation name of the hospital has always shown that the place provided “extensive” medical treatment to women. It proves the fact that the first Chinese character of the name is “普”, not “保” which is expressed in many documents today.The hospital was named according to Confucian ideals just like the other modern hospitals established around the same time, such as Jejungwon (濟衆院), Gwangjewon (廣濟院), Gwanghyeyeowon (廣惠女院). The Joseon government commonly used similar Chinese characters during the naming of these hospitals, characters that imply the ideal of the good Confucian king's favor for many people of Joseon. 普救女館 was unique in having the character “館(gwan)” in its name, not “院(won)” as in other hospitals. It seems to stem from the characteristic of “women's hospital.” Po Gu Nyo Goan, the unprecedented women's hospital, was probably imagined as a hospitable accommodation where women provided kindness to people in need. This may have been the reason why “館”, which has the meaning of accommodation, was chosen instead of “院” that primarily meant medical facilities.Correcting the name of 普救女館 helps to eliminate the confusion in current historiography and to promote the understanding of the historical significance of this hospital.

The Korea's first-ever on-line biomedical ethics education class began in September 1999. The class, one of the 18 on-line lectures offered in the Fall Semester, 1999 by Seoul National University Virtual Campus, allows the Korean general public the opportunity to attend an SNU lecture. Although the discussion sites are limited to the randomly selected 40 students taking the 16-week-long course, any one can read the instructor's lecture on the Internet. (http://snuvc. snu.ac.kr/class/h601) The topics of this course include abortion, euthanasia, organ transplantation, human cloning and etc. As members of the team responsible for this unprecedented biomedical ethics education program in Korea, we, the authors, report the experiences that the team went through both in preparing for and running the course. We concludes from the experience that we had that 16 weeks are too long for an on-line course without academic credits or sufficient number of tutors. Also, we suggest that in the near future the on-line biomedical ethics course should be able to be used for continuing education of such medical professions as medical doctors and nurses.
Bioethics* ; Cloning, Organism ; Education ; Education, Continuing ; Euthanasia ; Humans ; Internet ; Korea ; Lectures ; Organ Transplantation ; Running ; Seoul ; Transplants

When thinking about priority setting in access to healthcare resources, decision-making requires that cost-effectiveness is balanced against medical ethics. The burden of disease has emerged as an important approach to the assessment of health needs for political decision-making. However, the disability adjusted life years approach hides conceptual and methodological issues regarding the claims and value of disabled people. In this article, we discuss ethical issues that are raised as a consequence of the introduction of evidence-based health policy, such as economic evidence, in establishing resource allocation priorities. In terms of ethical values in health priority setting in Korea, there is no reliable rationale for the judgment used in decision-making as well as for setting separate and distinct priorities for different government bodies. An important question, therefore, is which ethical values guiding the practice of decision-making should be reconciled with the economic evidence found in Korean healthcare. The health technology assessment core model from the European network for Health Technology Assessment (EUnetHTA) project is a good example of incorporating ethical values into decision-making. We suggest that a fair distribution of scarce healthcare resources in South Korea can be achieved by considering the ethical aspects of healthcare.
Cost of Illness ; Delivery of Health Care ; Ethical Analysis ; Ethics ; Ethics, Medical ; Health Policy ; Health Priorities ; Judgment ; Korea* ; Quality-Adjusted Life Years ; Resource Allocation ; Technology Assessment, Biomedical ; Thinking