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

No abstract available.
Education, Medical* ; Humans ; Students, Medical*

No abstract available.
Accreditation* ; Schools, Medical*

No abstract available.
Coronary Disease*

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

No abstract available.
Humans ; Male* ; Seoul* ; Smoke* ; Smoking*

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*

No abstract available.
Female ; Humans ; Premenstrual Syndrome*

Silver industry or senior friendly industry is an industry that helps the aged people maintain their healthy life and increase their quality of life. It includes various specialized industries such as health care facilities and service industry, senior friendly housing industry, medical and rehabilitation equipments industry, senior friendly leisure industry, health information service industry, and so on. The silver industry is growing and becoming popular in countries where proportion of aged population and their buying power are increasing, and Korea is one of the fastest aging countries in the world and the buying power of the aged is also increasing. This means that the silver industry in Korea is expected to grow rapidly in the near future. In fact, one report foresees that the annual growth rate of silver industry for 10 years from 2010 in Korea is expected to be 12.9% whereas that of overall industry is only 4.7%.It is quite natural that active participation of physicians is desperately needed in the development of silver industry because of the nature of health problems of the aged population, and for effective applications and supplies of the silver industry to the aged. For this, specialized curriculum on geriatric health problems and the characteristics of silver industry should be provided to the medical students in the undergraduate medical education and to the physicians in the postgraduate and continuing medical education programs. Special short-term educational program for the retired physicians to work at the health care facilities with or without being paid are also desirable.
Aged ; Aging ; Curriculum ; Delivery of Health Care ; Education, Medical, Continuing ; Education, Medical, Undergraduate ; Equipment and Supplies ; Housing ; Humans ; Information Services ; Korea ; Leisure Activities ; Quality of Life ; Silver ; Students, Medical

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