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*

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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*

Scientific and humanistic aspects are integral to medicine and they must be bounded and integrated, not to suggest that one is more important than the other, or that they operate separately.In fact, the symbol of the physician, 'Caduceus' properly represents the bonding and intertwining between two forces of knowledge and wisdom or science and humanities, and as seen in the Hippocratic Oath, the humanities and the humanistic aspect of medical profession were important parts of practice thousands of years before medicine learned to use science as a new approach to acquire knowledge. However, the advances in science and technology in the early twenty century have fostered an emphasis on knowledge and technical skills in medical education with a neglect of the traditional humane and interpersonal aspects of the practice of medicine. Due to these concerns, for the last some 30years, there have been many attempts to improve general professional education and promote humanities curricula in medical education such as atruistic attitudes and professional behaviors that those pursuing careers in medicine should possess. This paper briefly reviews current status of teaching medical humanities and social sciences in Korean medical schools, and discusses tasks to be coped with to further improve the medical humanities curriculum in Korea including development of effective teaching and evaluation methods. This paper also emphasizes the importance of the role of the medical education systems such as National Licensing Medical Examination and the Medical School Accreditation System in improving the teaching of medical humanities and social sciences in Korean medical schools.
Accreditation ; Curriculum ; Education, Medical ; Education, Professional ; Hippocratic Oath ; Humanities* ; Humans* ; Korea ; Licensure ; Schools, Medical* ; Social Sciences

The Medical Student Objectives Project of the American Association of Medical Colleges states that physicians must demonstrate "a commitment to advocate at all times the interests of one's patients over one's own interests," as well as "an understanding of the threats to medical professionalism posed by the conflicts of interest inherent in various financial and organizational arrangements for the practice of medicine." Due to these concerns, for the last some 30 years, there have been many attempts to improve medical professionalism curriculum in medical education such as altruistic attitudes and professional behaviors that those pursuing careers in medicine should possess. However, physicians today are not infrequently confronting conflicts of interest, such as those arising between the health system that employs them and the individual patient seeking care. This paper briefly reviews current status of teaching medical professionalism in Korean medical schools, and discusses tasks to be coped with to further improve the medical professionalism curriculum in Korea including development of effective teaching and evaluation methods. This paper also emphasizes the importance of the role of the medical education systems such as National Licensing Medical Examination and the Medical School Accreditation System in improving the teaching of medical professionalism in Korean medical schools.
Accreditation ; Curriculum ; Education, Medical ; Humans ; Korea ; Licensure ; Schools, Medical ; Students, Medical ; Teaching