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KMID : 1025620040070020151
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Korean Journal of Medical Ethics
2004 Volume.7 No. 2 p.151 ~ p.166
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Professional Medical Ethics in the Cultural Context of Korea
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Kang Shin-Ik
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Abstract
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Korean medical society has been in turmoil since the mid-1990’s. The first impetus for this turmoil was given by a court ruling against the doctors who discharged a critically injured patient and removed lifesustaining appliances by request of the patient’s wife. Other members of the family filed a law suit against the doctors and the wife, and they were convicted of murders. When the debate began to subside, another serious problem arose. The government attempted to implement a policy of division between prescription and over-the-counter drugs in 2000. Physicians regarded this policy as an attack on their professional autonomy and integrity. To everyone’s surprise, they went on strike. A third issue stemmed from a report that a team of Korean scientists had cloned human embryos by somatic cell nucleus transfer and extracted stem cells for the first time in the world. These events will serve as paradigm cases for the moral discourse in the Korean health care field. Although these controversies exist in many other nations, the cultural impact is more profound in Korea. Korea has long perceived doctors as virtuous and embodying good human nature (德醫) rather than the specific medical virtues(醫德) they hold. Virtuous doctors are the medical professionals who not only listen to the voices of patients but also deeply tune into the reality of people suffering from various problems. This kind of committment to the people coincides with the spirit of medical professionalism and "thick" version of virtue ethics developed in the west. These ideas encompass the moral resources physicians can mobility to make a moral contract with themselves.
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KEYWORD
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Cultural tradition, Professional ethics, Moral contract, Human ontology, Moral epistemology, Praxis
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