Medical license is to qualify a person for medical practice and to attribute him/her a privileged right in the practice. This privileged and exclusive right asks for protection from the side of a state and the state in turn needs qualified medical personnel in order to carry out her task of public health, one of the main duties of modern states. In Europe, physicians succeeded in obtaining medical license that guarantees the privileged right in a highly competitive medical market against other practitioners. The first regulation for medical license in Korea was made in 1900 when few Korean doctors trained in Western medicine was in practice. The regulation aimed at controlling traditional medical practitioners who had been practicing medicine without any qualification as a physician. The regulation was very brief, consisting of only seven articles. A newly revised regulation appeared in 1913 when Korea was under the occupation of Japan. The Japanese Government-General enacted a series of regulations about medical personnel, including dentists and traditional medical practitioners. This heralds its full-scale engagement in medical affaires in Korea. Unlike the case of European countries where medical license was obtained after a long struggle with other practitioners, in Korea, medical license was given to doctors too easily from the state. And this experience played a very important role in the formation of identity of Korean doctors.
English Abstract ; History of Medicine, 20th Cent. ; Korea ; Licensure, Medical/*history

In the 1950s and 1960s, Korea overcame the aftermath of the war and laid the foundations for modernization of economy and professionalization of medicine. The National Medical Services Law, enacted in 1951 was the first medical law to be legislated since the establishment of the Republic of Korea. The law provided a medical system for the traditional Korean medical practitioners, activated opening of hospitals through report-only system and prohibition of interference in medical practice, and facilitated mobilization of the doctors by the government. The Medical Law, legislated in 1962 by the Park Jong-Hee administration contained practice license system, regular practice reporting system and practice designation, thereby strengthening the government control on the medical practitioners, inducing professionalism and high-quality of medical practitioners and abolished unlicensed medical practitioners such as acupuncturists, moxa cauterists and bone setters. The Medical Assistant Law of 1963 was introduced so that medical examination and assistance could be carried out under supervision of professional doctors. To reduce areas without healthcare system, region-specified medical practitioners got licensure and a community doctor system was organized. However, due to expensive medical fees in comparison to economic status and medical needs of patients, shortage of doctors, low accessibility to hospitals led to the prevalence of illegal medical practice by unlicensed practitioners. Absence of national budget or policy on the health care system and the American-style noninterference medical system were other factors causing the situation. Government, Korean Medical Associations and Korean Dental Association tried, without success, to exercise control over the unlicensed medical practice. President Park Jong-Hee had to introduce a special law concerning the health-care related crimes with life sentence as the highest penalty. While the government put modernization before social welfare, operated on a policy of state-controlled medical care system, and doctors achieved specialization system similar to that of the United States, the public had to suffer, being treated by unlicensed medical practitioners. Inevitably, the need for a national medical practitioner supply plan and a policy to support health service was raised.
Health Policy/history ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Legislation, Medical/*history ; Licensure/*history ; Private Sector/history ; Public Health/history ; Republic of Korea ; State Medicine/*history

Vaccination is regarded as one of the biggest triumphs in the history of medicine. We are living in the most successful period of vaccine development. The accumulation of multidisciplinary knowledge and the investment of massive funding have enabled the development of vaccines against many infectious diseases as well as other diseases including malignant tumors. The paradigm of clinical vaccine evaluation and licensure has also been modernized based on scientific improvements and historical experience. However, there remain a number of hurdles to overcome. Continuous efforts are focused on increasing the efficacy and reducing the risks related to vaccine use. Cutting-edge knowledge about immunology and microbiology is being rapidly translated to vaccine development. Thus, physicians and others involved in the clinical development of vaccines should have sufficient understanding of the recent developmental trends in vaccination and the diseases of interest.
Allergy and Immunology ; Communicable Diseases ; Financial Management ; History of Medicine ; Investments ; Licensure ; Vaccination ; Vaccines

It is very important to establish precisely the historical phases of nursing. We nurses should try to acquire the central social position in the health management system in the near the future, the 21st Century. Therefore my treatise aims to orient the desirable phase of the history of nursing through the feministic survey of the history of nursing from the post medieval epoche to the modern epoche. During the time of the renaissance which gave morning light to the modern epoche the antique Athenian thinking of sex was again revived. Athenian excluded the women from the public and autonomous regions. All the medical activity, once dominated by the women, was misfortunately regarded as superstition acted by witches. Accordingly, the nursing women were to hunted as witches. In short, in the early modern epoche, women began to be excluded from the history of medical activities. In the middle modern epoche characterized by the enlightenment movement and early capital economic system, capitalistic patriarchal system began to be formed by change in the economic system. The status of women began to be greatly dropped below by the social distinction of the private dimension of home and the public dimension of job. The woman was deprived of even the occasion to get the official license of medicine and medical institutions were handed to the states or the powerful and rich merchants. Accordingly, nursing acted mainly in the nunnery as the total approach to the patients was destructed wholly and transformed into the means of earning the money. Therefore unprepared low class-women began to engage in nursing only for the money. From then on, nursing activity was tunneled through the dark age for 200 years. In the late modern epoche characterized by the contrast of the accumulated vast capital by industrialization and vast poverty of the peoples, feminism began to float over the surface for the acquisition of equality of men and women from England. A feminist, Nightingale insisted that the women as nurses should be responsible for the healthy life of man. She tried the professional nursing education for women. Accordingly she not only contributed to the intellectual progress of women but also inspired in women the consciousness of the professional job. She tired to realize the ideal of at-that-time-feminists by engaging in nursing all through life. She really paved the road to contemporary nursing. In the near the future, I will write to describe how the late modern epoche nursing has fallen into the dilemma through the 1st and 2nd world wars and matured capitalism and to consider contemporary nursing with the status of women. All these papers aim to give proper recognition of nursing and right orientation of the future 21st Century nursing.
Capitalism ; Consciousness ; Education, Nursing ; England ; Female ; Feminism ; Hand ; History of Nursing ; Humans ; Licensure ; Male ; Nursing ; Poverty ; Superstitions ; Thinking ; World War II

It is very important to establish precisely the historical phases of nursing. We nurses should try to acquire the central social position in the health management system in the near the future, the 21st Century. Therefore my treatise aims to orient the desirable phase of the history of nursing through the feministic survey of the history of nursing from the post medieval epoche to the modern epoche. During the time of the renaissance which gave morning light to the modern epoche the antique Athenian thinking of sex was again revived. Athenian excluded the women from the public and autonomous regions. All the medical activity, once dominated by the women, was misfortunately regarded as superstition acted by witches. Accordingly, the nursing women were to hunted as witches. In short, in the early modern epoche, women began to be excluded from the history of medical activities. In the middle modern epoche characterized by the enlightenment movement and early capital economic system, capitalistic patriarchal system began to be formed by change in the economic system. The status of women began to be greatly dropped below by the social distinction of the private dimension of home and the public dimension of job. The woman was deprived of even the occasion to get the official license of medicine and medical institutions were handed to the states or the powerful and rich merchants. Accordingly, nursing acted mainly in the nunnery as the total approach to the patients was destructed wholly and transformed into the means of earning the money. Therefore unprepared low class-women began to engage in nursing only for the money. From then on, nursing activity was tunneled through the dark age for 200 years. In the late modern epoche characterized by the contrast of the accumulated vast capital by industrialization and vast poverty of the peoples, feminism began to float over the surface for the acquisition of equality of men and women from England. A feminist, Nightingale insisted that the women as nurses should be responsible for the healthy life of man. She tried the professional nursing education for women. Accordingly she not only contributed to the intellectual progress of women but also inspired in women the consciousness of the professional job. She tired to realize the ideal of at-that-time-feminists by engaging in nursing all through life. She really paved the road to contemporary nursing. In the near the future, I will write to describe how the late modern epoche nursing has fallen into the dilemma through the 1st and 2nd world wars and matured capitalism and to consider contemporary nursing with the status of women. All these papers aim to give proper recognition of nursing and right orientation of the future 21st Century nursing.
Capitalism ; Consciousness ; Education, Nursing ; England ; Female ; Feminism ; Hand ; History of Nursing ; Humans ; Licensure ; Male ; Nursing ; Poverty ; Superstitions ; Thinking ; World War II

During the reign of Japanese Government-General of Korea (Joseon) from 1910 to 1945, the main health professionals who were educated about modern medicine were categorized into physicians, dentists, pharmacists, midwives, and nurses. They were clearly distinguished from traditional health professionals. The regulations on new health professionals were enacted, and the licensing system was enforced in earnest. There were two kinds of licensing systems: the license without examination through an educational institution and the license with the national examination. The Japanese Government-General of Korea (Joseon) combined education with a national examination system to produce a large number of health professionals rapidly; however, it was insufficient to fulfill the increasing demand for health services. Therefore, the government eased the examination several times and focused on quantitative expansion of the health professions. The proportion of professionals licensed through national examination had increased. This system had produced the maximum number of available professionals at low cost. Furthermore, this system was significant in three respects: first, the establishment of the framework of the national licensing examination still used today for health professionals; second, the protection of people from the poor practices of unqualified practitioners; and third, the standardization of the quality of health.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group* ; Dentists ; Education ; Health Occupations* ; Health Services ; History, Modern 1601- ; Humans ; Korea* ; Licensure* ; Midwifery ; Pharmacists ; Social Control, Formal

This article traces early career of Kong Pyung Woo, a public figure famous for being the first doctor of medicine in ophthalmology with Korean ethnicity in 1936, for founding and running the oldest and still the most successful private eye clinic in Korea since 1937, and also for his engagement in development of Korean mechanical typewriter since 1949. His case is an illustrative example of how a Korean under the Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945) could build up a career to become a medical doctor, taking full advantage of the chances available. Kong, born in 1907 in a rural province in northwestern Korea, acquired a doctor's license in 1926 by passing the qualifying examination of the Government General in Korea. The qualification test was in itself an outcome of colonial education system, in which the supply of medical doctors by only a few tertiary schools could not meet the demands. After working for a state hospital for one year, Kong volunteered to be a visiting student at Keijo Medical College, to fulfill his dream of "becoming a prominent bacteriologist like Noguchi Hideyo." He was soon officially appointed as a tutor at Department of Ophthalmology, as he had been endorsed by professor Satake Shyuichi for his diligence and earnestness. Satake also encouraged Kong to pursue a doctoral degree and recommended him to Tokumitsu Yoshitomi, a professor in the Department of Pathology at Keijo Imperial University, so that Kong could experience cutting-edge research at the imperial university. Kong reported on his experiments on the pathology of chorioretinitis centralis by 1935. He submitted the reports to Nagoya Imperial University, Japan, as a doctoral thesis, and eventually obtained the degree in 1936, which was the first Korean doctor of medicine in ophthalmology. The doctorate made Kong a public figure and he opened his own private clinic in 1937. The Kong Eye Clinic was the first private eye clinic owned and run by Korean, and soon became popular in Seoul. Kong's fame as a successful practitioner gradually made him express his opinion on various social issues. Kong did not hesitate to utilize his influence to advocate the new "modern" way of living, with special emphasis on speed and efficiency. His engagement in typewriter business since 1949 may also be attributed to his firm belief in the value of speed and efficiency. Although he could not fulfill his dream of being an academic, Kong still remains as an important figure in the history of medicine in modern Korea, not only for his publicity. By closely analyzing Kong's personal story, one can see various aspects of opportunities, personal networks, social norms, and limitations within the colonial setting.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Chorioretinitis ; Commerce ; Education ; Education, Medical ; History of Medicine ; Hospitals, State ; Humans ; Japan ; Korea* ; Licensure ; Ophthalmology* ; Pathology ; Running ; Seoul