With the arrivals of the antibiotic era in the 1950s and 1960s and the subsequent conquest of acute infectious disease, the predominant problems of Koreans became chronic illnesses. Chronic illnesses have two important characteristics that directly affect both prevention and treatment. First, they often begin early in life, long before overt symptoms appear; the exact starting date for a chronic disease in never known. Second, once a chronic illness is present, it remains with the patient forever. The disease is not cured by medical treatment.
With chronic illnesses, however, prevention and treatment cannot be a one-shot affair. For example, arteriosclerotic heart disease begins early in life and is probably affected by diet, cigarette smoking, stress, obesity, and several other factors that are directly related to personal habits and life-style. Prevention of these conditions cannot be accomplished by giving a person a single lecture on the evils of high - cholesterol food or the danger of smoking. Rather prevention must be long-term, continuous, and aimed at bring about major changes in an individual´s habit and life-style.
Unfortunately our health care system is modeled on the acute disease pattern. Recently, a number of critics have pointed out deficiencies in our health care system. As a result, it may require a different approaches including a reinforcing of health education in health insurance and a more continuous system of organizing patient care.
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