All medical researches concentrate primarily on advances of medical knowledge and strategies for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. However, since most of the medical researches are being carried out on human subjects, they often pose ethical problems. Clinical investigations from which the human subjects involved may not derive any personal benefits include studies of physiological function in health or disease, investigations of new drugs, and the trial of new procedures. This paper discusses the ethical problems associated with medical researches, especially clinical investigations involving human subjects directly or indirectly. One general principle that has been wildly accepted is that patients or volunteers involved in the clinical investigations should be fully informed about the experiment in which they participate. However, ethical problems in those clinical investigations should be evaluated by the three major biomedical ethical principles, or the principle of autonomy, the principle of beneficence, and the principle of justice. This paper also presents the 'Helsinki Declaration' advocated by the World Medical Association in 1964 and revised thereafter several times as a practical guideline for the ethics of medical research.
Beneficence ; Diagnosis ; Ethics* ; Helsinki Declaration ; Humans ; Social Justice ; Volunteers

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Education, Medical* ; Humans ; Students, Medical*

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Accreditation* ; Schools, Medical*

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Coronary Disease*

No abstract available.
Adult* ; Case-Control Studies* ; Humans ; Risk Factors*

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Humans ; Male* ; Seoul* ; Smoke* ; Smoking*

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Female ; Humans ; Premenstrual Syndrome*

Schools of public health are graduate level higher educational institutions training students who will be engaging in educational, research and service activities in the field of public health after completing the educational programs. To meet this institutional goal, the schools of public health should provide diverse academic and professional courses and programs to the students based on their educational objectives. Educational objectives of schools of public health, of course, should well reflect the working definition of public health : public health is the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical health and efficiency through organized community efforts. There are 13 schools of public health in Korea an of 1999 including occupational and environmental schools. However, most of them were opened in 1980s and 90s, and therefore, do not have properly described educational and learning objectives. This paper proposes that Korean schools of public health should review their institutional goals and have clearly stated educational objectives. This also proposes development of standardized learning objectives of core subjects such as epidemiology, statistics, environmental health, health education and public health administration. Important units of these core subjects are also provided.
Environmental Health ; Epidemiology ; Health Education ; Humans ; Korea ; Learning* ; Public Health Administration ; Public Health*

On April 28, the National Assembly passed 3 bills revising the Medical Act, Pharmaceutical Affairs Act, and Medical Instruments Act which are related to the so-called 'dual punishment system' at its 9th plenary session of the 289th provisional meeting. According to the government timetable, beginning November of this year (2010), doctors will be subject to imprisonment for up to two years or face fines of up to 30 million won when found to have taken financial or non-financial benefits from drug companies. Their license could also be suspended for one year. Interactions between industry and physicians are vital to public health. However, they must be principled partnerships effectively managed to sustain public trust in both partners' commitment to patient welfare and the improvement of health care. Mounting scientific evidence indicates that gifts, favors, and other marketing activities, both explicit and implicit, prejudice independent judgment in unconscious ways. Physicians who receive free gifts from the pharmaceutical industry must consider the ethical dilemmas posed by this practice. These dilemmas are conflict of interest, impairment of objectivity, and the impact of these free gifts on the cost of health care. In order to minimize the likelihood of biased decisions by physicians, pharmaceutical companies should comply with their code of ethics for fair competition, while medical societies should establish an influence-free culture for physicians and optimize the benefits inherent in the principled relationships between medical society and industry.
Bias (Epidemiology) ; Codes of Ethics ; Conflict of Interest ; Delivery of Health Care ; Drug Industry ; Gift Giving ; Humans ; Judgment ; Licensure ; Marketing ; Prejudice ; Public Health ; Punishment ; Societies, Medical ; Unconscious (Psychology)

Premature rupture of membrane is the most frequent cause of low birth weight infant delivery which increase the maternal and fetal morbidity and perinatal mortality. A retrospective case-control study was performed on 315 mothers who delivered low birth weight infants(< or = 2.5kg) with premature rupture of membrane and as control group 546 mothers who delivered normal birth weight infants(2.9-3.7kg) without premature rupture of membrane were chosen. The results obtained from this study were as follows: 1. The proportion of low birth weight infants due to premature rupture of membrane among all low birth weight infant deliveries was 14.5%, and this is equivalent to 1.1% among all deliveries. 2. The most significant maternal risk factor of low birth weight infant deliveries with premature rupture of membrane was infections on vagina, cervix and uterus during pregnancy. Compared with control, adjusted odds ratio was 7.61(95% confidence interval(CI) 1.88-30.88, p=0.004). Other significant maternal risk factors were the history of induced abortion, spontaneous abortion, and the experience of premature delivery. The risk ratios were 1.82, 2.07, 4.42, respectively. 3. Breech presentation did increase the risk of low birth weight infant delivery with infant delivery with premature rupture of membrane against control(Adjusted odds ratio=2.66, 95% CI 1.35-5.26, p=0.005). 4. Mothers who had not taken antenatal care were having higher risk of low birth weight infant delivery with premature rupture of membrane against control(Adjusted odds ratio=1.73, 95% CI 1.35-5.26, p=0.004). These study results show that maternal factors such as the infection of genital organs during pregnancy, the history of induced abortion and breech presentation are significantly associated with the premature rupture of membrane in the low birth weight deliveries, and that most of these risk factors are controllable ones through proper antenatal cares.
Abortion, Induced ; Abortion, Spontaneous ; Birth Weight ; Breech Presentation ; Case-Control Studies ; Cervix Uteri ; Female ; Genitalia ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Low Birth Weight* ; Infant, Newborn ; Membranes* ; Mothers ; Odds Ratio ; Perinatal Mortality ; Pregnancy ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; Rupture* ; Uterus ; Vagina