Following the opening of eleven medical schools in Korea in the 1980s, the issues of standardization and accreditation of medical education came to the forefront in the early 1990s. To address the medical community’s concern about the quality of medical education, the Korean Council for University Education and Ministry of Education conducted a compulsory medical school evaluation in 1996 to see whether the medical schools were meeting accreditation standards or not. The evaluation was a “relative evaluation” rather than an “absolute evaluation.” The Accreditation Board for Medical Education in Korea (ABMEK), established in 1998, was a mere voluntary organization, but with the full support of the Korean medical community, it successfully completed its first cycle of evaluations on all 41 medical schools from 2000–2004. The history of medical education evaluation activities, including those of ABMEK, was not well recorded. In 2004, ABMEK changed its name to the Korean Institute of Medical Education and Evaluation (KIMEE) as a corporate body and the government paid much attention to its voluntary accreditation activities. In 2014, the Ministry of Education officially recognized the KIMEE as an Institute for Accreditation of Higher Education Evaluation. The most important lesson learned from the history of ABMEK/KIMEE is the importance of cooperation among all medical education-related organizations, including the Korean Medical Association.

Following the opening of 12 new medical schools in Korea in the 1980s, standardization and accreditation of medical schools came to the forefront in the early 1990s. To address the medical community’s concerns about the quality of medical education, the Korean Council for University Education and Ministry of Education conducted a compulsory medical school evaluation in 1996 to see whether medical schools were meeting academic standards or not. This evaluation was, however, a norm-referenced assessment, rather than a criterion-referenced assessment. As a result, the Accreditation Board for Medical Education in Korea (ABMEK) was founded in 1998 as a voluntary organization by the medical community. With full support of the Korean medical community, ABMEK completed its 1st cycle of evaluations of all 41 medical schools from 2000 to 2004. In 2004, ABMEK changed its name to the Korean Institute of Medical Education and Evaluation (KIMEE) as a corporate body. After that, the Korean government paid closer attention to its voluntary accreditation activities. In 2014, the Ministry of Education officially recognized the KIMEE as the 1st professional institute for higher education evaluation accreditation. The most important lesson learned from ABMEK/KIMEE is the importance of collaboration among all medical education-related organizations, including the Korean Medical Association.

No abstract available.
Korea*

This study is to investigate the historical characteristics of medical education and healthcare environment in Korea and to suggest the desirable direction for future medical education. We draw a consensus through the literature analysis and several debates from the eight experts of medical education. There are several historical characteristics of medical education: medical education as vocational education and training, as a higher education, rapid growth of new medical schools, change to the medical education system, curriculum development, reinforcement of medical humanities, improvement of teaching and evaluation methods, validation of the national health personnel licensing examination, accreditation system for quality assurance, and establishment of specialized medical education division. The changes of health care environment in medical education are development of medical technologies, changes in the structures of the population and diseases, growth of information and communication technology, consumer-centered society, and increased intervention by the third party stakeholder. We propose five suggestions to be made to improve future medical education. They are plan for outcome and competency-based medical education, connection between the undergraduate and graduate medical education, reinforcement of continuous quality improvement of medical education, reorganization of the medical education system and construction of leadership of "academic medicine."
Accreditation ; Consensus ; Curriculum ; Delivery of Health Care ; Education ; Education, Medical* ; Education, Medical, Graduate ; Health Personnel ; Humanities ; Humans ; Korea ; Leadership ; Licensure ; Quality Improvement ; Schools, Medical ; Vocational Education

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)

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this paper is to discuss the importance of obtaining informed consent for conducting epidemiological studies and public health activities, based on the Report of the UNESCO's Working Group on Informed Consent. METHODS: The Report of the UNESCO's Working Group on Informed Consent was reviewed and discussed in connection with the ethical considerations of public health activities and epidemiological research. RESULTS: It was at the Nuremberg Trial for the German war criminals of the Second World War that the principle of 'consent' was first stated as a consequence of the medical abuses carried out during the War. As a result of the Trial, the Nuremberg Code came out in 1947. Since then, various international declarations or ethical principles on 'informed consent' have been developed and published. These ethical principles on 'informed consent' have mostly to do with the clinical research that involves human subjects, and not with epidemiological studies and public health activities. However, UNESCO recently issued a comprehensive Report on Informed Consent based on the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights adopted in 2005, and this included detailed guidelines on informed consent in epidemiological studies and public health activities. CONCLUSIONS: Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights emphasizes the principle of autonomy to protect the human rights of the human subjects involved in any public health activities and epidemiological research. As a practical guideline, obtaining informed consent is strongly recommended.
*Bioethics ; Consensus ; Epidemiologic Studies ; *Human Rights ; Humans ; Informed Consent/*ethics/legislation & jurisprudence ; Public Health/*ethics/legislation & jurisprudence ; *United Nations

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

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

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

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Evidence for the effect of dietary factors on colorectal carcinogenesis is yet inconsistent. Few studies have been conducted to investigate whether dietary factors were associated with the developement of colorectal adenoma-carcinoma sequence in Korea. We evaluated the relationship between the intake of vegetables and fruits and the degree of dysplasia of the colorectal adenoma and cancer. METHODS: For this study, 539 cases with histopathologically confirmed incidental colorectal adenoma, 162 cases with colorectal cancer and 2,576 controls were collected from Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea during 1994-1999. Informations on demographic characteristics, life style habits and dietary intake were obtained by interviewed questionnaire before the colonoscopy. Adjusted odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) were estimated by using polytomous logistic regression model. RESULTS: In female, the high intake of raw green and yellow vegetables were found to be negatively associated with the risk of colorectal cancer (adjusted OR: 0.54, 95% CI=0.32-0.93) and the high intake of persimmon, mandarin and strawberry among fruits were negatively associated with the risk of adenoma with mild dysplasia (adjusted OR: 0.43, 95% CI=0.20-0.94). In male, the high intake of banana, pear, apple and watermelon among fruits were negatively associated with the risk of colorectal cancer (adjusted OR: 0.36, 95% CI=0.16-0.84). CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that the intake of vegetables and fruits may act differently in developmental steps of colorectal adenoma-carcinoma sequence.
Adenoma/*prevention & control ; Adult ; Aged ; Carcinoma/*prevention & control ; Colorectal Neoplasms/*prevention & control ; *Diet ; English Abstract ; Female ; *Fruit ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; *Vegetables