Purpose: : This study aimed to compare the effects of Kinesio taping and non-elastic taping on wrist pain, range of motion (ROM), grip strength, and wrist function among intensive care unit (ICU) nurses. Methods: : This quasi-experimental study used a non-equivalent control group pretest–posttest design to compare a Kinesio taping group with a non-elastic taping group. Data were collected between April 10 and May 16, 2025. Fifty participants were included in the final analysis, with 26 in the experimental group and 24 in the control group. Results: : There were significant group-by-time interaction effects for wrist pain (F = 6.65, p = .001) and wrist flexion ROM (F = 3.15, p = .035), indicating greater improvements over time in the Kinesio taping group than in the control group. No significant group-by-time interaction effects were observed for grip strength (F = 0.32, p = .730) and wrist function (F = 1.17, p = .318). Conclusion : This study demonstrates that Kinesio taping is an effective intervention for reducing wrist pain and improving ROM among ICU nurses with wrist pain. The application of Kinesio taping may help reduce the musculoskeletal burden and support stable work performance in ICU clinical settings.

Emerging infectious diseases have risen sharply due to population growth, urbanization, travel, trade, and environmental changes, with outbreaks like severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and coronavirus disease 2019 highlighting the global need for effective surveillance systems. Various infectious disease surveillance systems are applied depending on the surveillance objectives, target populations, and geographical scope. While Korea has a robust surveillance system, challenges remain in integrating data, enhancing coordination, and improving response efficiency. This article reviews the types and roles of infectious disease surveillance systems through a literature review and proposes strategies for improving Korea’s surveillance system by comparing it with those of other countries, including the World Health Organization (WHO). To strengthen Korea’s surveillance framework, a comprehensive strategy should be implemented to interconnect multiple surveillance mechanisms and enhance real-time data sharing. A centralized data platform must integrate these systems, leveraging artificial intelligence and big data analytics for faster outbreak analysis. International collaboration through data-sharing networks with the WHO, European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, and U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is essential, along with standardized reporting formats to improve interoperability.

Emerging infectious diseases have risen sharply due to population growth, urbanization, travel, trade, and environmental changes, with outbreaks like severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and coronavirus disease 2019 highlighting the global need for effective surveillance systems. Various infectious disease surveillance systems are applied depending on the surveillance objectives, target populations, and geographical scope. While Korea has a robust surveillance system, challenges remain in integrating data, enhancing coordination, and improving response efficiency. This article reviews the types and roles of infectious disease surveillance systems through a literature review and proposes strategies for improving Korea’s surveillance system by comparing it with those of other countries, including the World Health Organization (WHO). To strengthen Korea’s surveillance framework, a comprehensive strategy should be implemented to interconnect multiple surveillance mechanisms and enhance real-time data sharing. A centralized data platform must integrate these systems, leveraging artificial intelligence and big data analytics for faster outbreak analysis. International collaboration through data-sharing networks with the WHO, European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, and U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is essential, along with standardized reporting formats to improve interoperability.

Emerging infectious diseases have risen sharply due to population growth, urbanization, travel, trade, and environmental changes, with outbreaks like severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and coronavirus disease 2019 highlighting the global need for effective surveillance systems. Various infectious disease surveillance systems are applied depending on the surveillance objectives, target populations, and geographical scope. While Korea has a robust surveillance system, challenges remain in integrating data, enhancing coordination, and improving response efficiency. This article reviews the types and roles of infectious disease surveillance systems through a literature review and proposes strategies for improving Korea’s surveillance system by comparing it with those of other countries, including the World Health Organization (WHO). To strengthen Korea’s surveillance framework, a comprehensive strategy should be implemented to interconnect multiple surveillance mechanisms and enhance real-time data sharing. A centralized data platform must integrate these systems, leveraging artificial intelligence and big data analytics for faster outbreak analysis. International collaboration through data-sharing networks with the WHO, European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, and U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is essential, along with standardized reporting formats to improve interoperability.

Emerging infectious diseases have risen sharply due to population growth, urbanization, travel, trade, and environmental changes, with outbreaks like severe acute respiratory syndrome, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and coronavirus disease 2019 highlighting the global need for effective surveillance systems. Various infectious disease surveillance systems are applied depending on the surveillance objectives, target populations, and geographical scope. While Korea has a robust surveillance system, challenges remain in integrating data, enhancing coordination, and improving response efficiency. This article reviews the types and roles of infectious disease surveillance systems through a literature review and proposes strategies for improving Korea’s surveillance system by comparing it with those of other countries, including the World Health Organization (WHO). To strengthen Korea’s surveillance framework, a comprehensive strategy should be implemented to interconnect multiple surveillance mechanisms and enhance real-time data sharing. A centralized data platform must integrate these systems, leveraging artificial intelligence and big data analytics for faster outbreak analysis. International collaboration through data-sharing networks with the WHO, European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, and U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is essential, along with standardized reporting formats to improve interoperability.

Background: The prevalence of long-term prescriptions, often exceeding six months, has increased in recent years. This raises con-cerns about potential risks to patient safety due to insufficient monitoring of changes in patient conditions after initiating treatment. Objectives: This study investigates community pharmacists’ perceptions of long-term prescriptions exceeding 90 days, focusing on dispensing practices, perceived advantages and disadvantages, and strategies to minimize associated risks. Methods: After informing 735 pharmacists from a single pharmacy chain about the study’s purpose and content, an online survey was conducted among those who consented to participate. A total of 267 pharmacists responded between July 6 and July 13, 2024. Data were collected using a Google Forms questionnaire and analyzed using chi-square tests with a significance level of 0.05. Results: 88.8% of pharmacists reported dispensing long-term prescriptions (≥90 days) daily, with 50-70% involving unit dose packing. Reduced patient visits and resulting cost saving were noted as benefits of long-term prescriptions. Concerns included risks such as decreased stability due tolong-term storage, polypharmacy, reduced medication adherence, and drug waste. The main reasons for discarded medications were prescription changes (66.7%) and overlaps with other medications (26.2%). Conclusions Long-term prescriptions can undermine the safety of drug use and lead to issues such as costs associated with drug disposal. Therefore, policy efforts are needed to addressthese concerns.

The definition of faculty development has been refined and expanded over the past few decades, and various definitions have been used in higher education. Initially, faculty development was defined as activities that help teachers improve teaching skills, design better curricula, and improve the organizational environment for education. Since then, as the focus of faculty development has shifted from individual professors to institutional needs, faculty development is now defined as the personal and professional development of professors, clinicians, researchers, and managers to meet institutional goals, visions, and missions in social terms and moral responsibility to the community. Faculty development in medical education is universally needed to recognize and cope with widespread changes in education, including the traditional role of professors, advances in pedagogical theory, changes in learning styles, innovative curriculum models, and evaluation philosophy. However, critics have pointed out that most universities could not actively implement faculty development or accept professors’ various demands. In this paper, various reports related to faculty development are reviewed to summarize how faculty development has progressed and present future directions for accepting various opinions to improve educational excellence and the quality of health care.

Purpose: The expertise of medicians in clinical decision-making is very important since it improves the quality of medical services provided to patients. This study analyzed the characteristics of the decision-making process and confirmed clinicians’ electroencephalography (EEG) characteristics by measuring their cerebral activity during clinical decision-making. This study aims to present learning directions for brain-based clinical decision-making to develop medical experts. Methods: This study was performed in the following two projects: (1) a qualitative study of clinical decision-making in a clinical scenario and (2) an analysis of differences in cortical activity of experts and novices through EEG. Results: In the 1st study, this study found that “confirmation of the patient’s chief complaints,” “physical examination,” and “radiography reading” steps, which showed the most prominent differences in the experts’ and novices’ decision making, were set as the significant steps of dentists’ clinical decision making. In the 2nd study, the experts’ and novices’ cortical activities were measured through a 32-channel EEG. In task 6, which had the lowest accuracy of diagnoses made by the experts, the brain activities in both groups were higher than in other tasks. Conclusion This study developed and suggested a model of the decision-making process for experts and novices and suggested the basic directions for brain-based learning needed to raise experts based on brain activity.

This study evaluated the consistency between two quantitative fit test devices with different methods of ambient aerosol counting. Three types of respirators (N95, half mask, and full facepiece) were worn by 50 participants (male, n = 25; female, n = 25), PortaCount (Pro+ 8038) and MT (05U) were connected to one probe to one mask, and fit factors (FFs) were measured simultaneously with the original and modified protocols. As a result of comparing MT FFs with PortaCount FFs as references and by applying for the pass/fail criteria (FF = 100), the consistency between the two devices for half masks and full facepieces was very high. N95 was somewhat weaker than the two type of respirators in the consistency; however, the correlation between the two devices was very strong (p < 0.0001). The results showed that an FF of 100 as measured by PortaCount was likely to be measured as 75 by the MT. Therefore, when performing the fit test for N95 using the MT and pass level of FF 100, a certain level of adjustment is necessary, whether end-user or putting a scaling factor by manufacturer.

Purpose: There is an increasing number of colorectal cancer survivors in South Korea. However, no research has identified supportive care needs of survivors of colorectal cancer in South Korea. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the level of supportive care needs and effects of emotional state and quality of life (QoL) on supportive care needs of colorectal cancer survivors. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 115 survivors of colorectal cancer in South Korean who had primary treatment of surgery for colorectal cancer. Data were collected from April to September 2016. Participants responded to self-reported questionnaires assessing supportive care needs, emotional state (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale), and QoL (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Colorectal scale). Results: The overall score of supportive care needs for colorectal cancer survivors was 1.22 ± 0.61 (full score: 3 points), with health care staff and social support needs garnering highest scores. Approximately, 20.0% and 21.7% of patients had anxiety and depression, respectively. The mean QoL score was 2.90 ± 0.53, with social and family status having the lowest QoL score. Multiple regression analysis showed that both the period after treatment and anxiety significantly influenced supportive care needs. Conclusion Appropriate interventions should be used immediately after completion of treatment to help reduce anxiety and meet supportive care needs of colorectal cancer survivors.