• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.6173-6180
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• 2013

Background: Our objective was to determine the knowledge and attitudes of Thai generalists (general physicians) toward palliative terminal cancer care (PC) in a primary care setting. Materials and Methods: We performed a cross-sectional descriptive survey using a self-administered questionnaire. The total number of completed and returned questionnaires was 63, giving a 56% response rate. Data analysis was based on these (Cronbach's alpha=0.82) and percentages and mean values were assessed using the Fisher's exact test to determine the correlation of variables. Results: Overall, attitude and knowledge levels were slightly satisfactory. Results indicated that general physicians had moderate scores in both attitudes (84.1%) and knowledge (55.7%) regarding palliative terminal cancer care. However, they had insufficient knowledge regarding truth telling, pain control and management with morphine, emergency management in terminal cancer care and treatment of fluid intake in terminal stages. Attitude and knowledge scores were statistically correlated (p=0.036). Knowledge scores were further positively associated with being taught palliative care in their medical curriculum (p=0.042). Conclusions: Formal education in palliative care and development of palliative care services are very much needed in Thailand to provide holistic care to terminally ill patients.

• Journal of Medicine and Life Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.80-83
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• 2019

First of all, this study shows the legal issues of hospice and palliative care, and the legal basis for lifelong medical practice is generally derived from medical, civil and criminal law regulations, and is applied to patients who are severely ill and dying in principle. In addition, those what is particularly meaningful about hospice and palliative care in terms of legal aspects are discussed the determination of the purpose of care and the provision of medical adaptability and adult guardianship, in particular the legal criteria for the work and status of patient representatives. As such, the purpose of care is to form part of the contract of care and to be agreed between the patient and the physician. In addition, the patient may not write to his/her agent in advance, and the patient may admit discretionary powers to his/her agent, but the patient's will is to be considered. In conclusion, the medical institutional ethics committee should play an active role, especially in the case of no-agents/family or no intention of the patient.

• The Journal of Korean Medical History
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.89-99
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• 2022

The figures listed under the title of 'Photo Insert' in 『HanBangEuiYakGye』 No.2 are all those who were engaged in East Asian medicine, but they can be divided into several groups depending on the areas in which they were more focused. First, he served as a royal physician at the end of the Joseon Dynasty, or was an oriental medical doctor with outstanding medical skills during the family service. Second, he is an East Asian medicine doctor who established a school for Korean medicine education or conducted various academic activities. Third, he is an East Asian medical doctor who worked hard to lead a group of East Asian medical doctors by organizing Korean medical doctors. Looking at the reality of the oppression of ethnic medicine committed by the Japanese colonial government, they continued to seek a way to live in national medicine, which played a major role in continuing the existence of Korean medicine without destroying it. In this paper, we analyzed the 13 Korean medical doctors introduced in the "Photo Insertion" and examined the activities of modern and contemporary East Asian medical doctors.

• Journal of agricultural medicine and community health
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.79-86
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• 2017

Objectives: Metabolic syndrome and depression are interconnected disorders. Although many studies have assessed the association between dietary intake and each disorder independently, few studies have examined the association between depression and dietary intake in patients with metabolic syndrome. Our study examined the association between depression and dietary intake in adults with metabolic syndrome. Methods: We analyzed the second data set (2014) from the sixth KNHNES. Of the patients with metabolic syndrome, the final study population comprised 1,334 patients, aged 20 to 60 years, with metabolic syndrome as defined by KNHNES and depression diagnosed by a physician. We examined the patients' dietary intake obtained using the 24-h recollection method in KNHNES. Results: Depression group had a lower niacin dietary intake than those without depression in both male and female (male P=0.047, female P=0.025). None of the other components had any association between depression group and those without depression group in both male and female. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that a low dietary intake of niacin may be related to the depression in patients with metabolic syndrome. The results indicate that it is worthwhile to evaluate the nutritional status in patients who have been diagnosed with both metabolic syndrome and depression.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.166-173
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• 2019

Purpose: High-quality hospice and palliative medicine curricula are necessary in Korean medical schools. This study evaluated changes in students' knowledge and attitudes toward both hospice and palliative care following the completion of a course on these topics, as well as the course's overall role in the basic medical education curriculum. Methods: Questionnaires measuring knowledge and attitudes were collected before and after the course from 76 fourth-year medical students, who had received instructions integrating both hospice and palliative care in 2016. Results: The questionnaire item "Select the correct answer on the use of opioid pain control in hospice and palliative care" changed the most in terms of number of correct answers pre- and post-course (3.50 and 5.32, respectively; P<0.001). Pre- and post-course, the numbers of students who answered "Strongly Agree" and "Agree" to questions concerning their attitudes toward hospice and palliative care ("I know the purposes and roles of hospice and palliative care") were 17 (22.4%) and 65 (85.6%), respectively (P≤0.001). Affirmative responses also increased for "As a pre-physician, I know when to describe and advise hospice and palliative care to patients", from 22 (28.9%) to 65 (85.6%; P≤0.001). Conclusion: This study showed that comprehensive hospice education in the form of an integrated educational course might promote changes in medical students' knowledge and attitudes toward hospice and palliative medicine.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.309-341
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• 2009

According to a case of Supreme Court's Sentence No. 2009DA17417 (May 21, 2009), the Supreme Court judges that 'the right to life is the ultimate one of basic human rights stipulated in the Constitution, so it is required to very limitedly and conservatively determine whether to discontinue any medical practice on which patient's life depends directly.' In addition, the Supreme Court admits that 'only if a patient who comes to a fatal phase before death due to attack of any irreversible disease may execute his or her right of self-determination based on human respect and values and human right to pursue happiness, it is permissible to discontinue life-sustaining treatment for him or her, unless there is any special circumstance.' Furthermore, the Supreme Court finds that 'if a patient who is attacked by any irreversible disease informs medical personnel of his or her intention to agree on the refusal or discontinuance of life-sustaining treatment in advance of his or her potential irreversible loss of consciousness, it is justifiable that he or she already executes the right of self-determination according to prior medical instructions, unless there is any special circumstance where it is reasonably concluded that his or her physician is changed after prior medical instructions for him or her.' The Supreme Court also finds that 'if a patient remains at irreversible loss of consciousness without any prior medical instruction, he or she cannot express his or her intentions at all, so it is rational and complying with social norms to admit possibility of estimating his or her own intentions on withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, provided that such a withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment meets his or her interests in view of his or her usual sense of values or beliefs and it is reasonably concluded that he or she could likely choose to discontinue life-sustaining treatment, even if he or she were given any chance to execute his or her right of self-determination.' This judgment is very significant in a sense that it suggests the reasonable orientation of solutions for issues posed concerning withdrawal of meaningless life-sustaining medical efforts. The issues concerning removal of medical instruments for meaningless life-sustaining treatment and discontinuance of such treatment in regard to medical treatment for terminal cases don't seem to be so much big deal when a patient has clear consciousness enough to express his or her intentions, but it counts that there is any issue regarding a patient who comes to irreversible loss of consciousness and cannot express his or her intentions. Therefore, it is required to develop an institutional instrument that allows relevant authority to estimate the scope of physician's medical duties for terminal patients as well as a patient's intentions to withdraw any meaningless treatment during his or her terminal phase involving loss of consciousness. However, Korean judicial authority has yet to clarify detailed cases where it is permissible to discontinue any life-sustaining treatment for a patient in accordance with his or her right of self-determination. In this context, it is inevitable and challenging to make better legislation to improve relevant systems concerning withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. The State must assure the human basic rights for its citizens and needs to prepare a system to assure such basic rights through legislative efforts. In this sense, simply entrusting physician, patient or his or her family with any critical issue like the withdrawal of meaningless life-sustaining treatment, even without any reasonable standard established for such entrustment, means the neglect of official duties by the State. Nevertheless, this issue is not a matter that can be resolved simply by legislative efforts. In order for our society to accept judicial system for withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, it is important to form a social consensus about this issue and also make proactive discussions on it from a variety of standpoints.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.58-67
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• 1995

Background: This paper describes an effort to provide baseline informations for appropriate utilization of emergency room in a tertiary hospital. Methods: Authors have evaluated that the admissions in the emergency room were medically necessary by objective criteria, Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol(AEP), for one month in a tertiary hospital. Data were analysed by chi-square test and multiple logistic regression to exmaine statistical significances at the level of 0.05. Results: The prevalence of inappropriate decisions for admission was found to be 47.8%(154/322). Whether the physician decided the patient to admit or not was affected by type of services, number of departments involved, patients' medical condition, route of visit, and a day of the week visited. Level of appropriateness of admission is significantly related to patients' age, type of services, and a day of the week visited. Conclusion: We found that substantial proportion of admissions through emergency room are medically unnecessary and that non-medical factors are related to physician's for admission decisions and level of appropriateness of admission. This suggests that policy measures be required to relieve the overcrowding problem and to reduce non-emergent utilization of emergency room in a tertiary hospital.

• Quality Improvement in Health Care
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.96-108
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• 1994

Background: An appropriate use of hospital beds can improve productivity of hospital significantly. The authors' previous study revealed that approximately one third of Korean hospital bed days and one sixth of admissions were inappropriately used, when it was measured by Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol(AEP) and Delay Tool modified into Korean situation by the authors. This study aims to evaluate applicability of the instruments in a new hospital. More specifically the study aims to measure appropriateness of the instruments used by newly trained nurse reviewers at a new hospital setting. Methods: In order to evaluate applicability of these instruments, agreement rates of the scores recorded by newly trained nurse reviewers with by skilled nurse reviewer and also compared with the scores recorded by physician's implicit decision were assessed. Agreement rates were derived from concurrent application of AEP and Delay Tool to 52 admissions and 104 patient days from internal medicine, pediatrics, and general surgery of one university hospital. Overall agreement rate, specific nonacute agreement rate, and kappa statistics were used to indicate level of agreement. Results: Overall agreement rates on appropriateness between newly trained nurse reviewers and skilled nurse reviewer were 100% in admission and 98% in bed days. Overall agreement rates on reason for inappropriateness between newly trained nurse reviewers and skilled nurse reviewer were 96% in admission and 91% in bed days. Overall agreement rates between newly trained nurse reviewers and physician reviewer were 86% in admission and 87% in bed days. Conclusion: Results indicated that AEP and Delay Tool were applicable to a new hospital in detecting inappropriate utilization of beds and reasoning of the inappropriateness. These instruments could contribute to enhance efficiency of hospital use, through continuous monitoring of level of inappropriate hospital use at national or individual hospital level.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.1419-1424
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• 2012

Objectives: To investigate in depth the use of complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) by cancer patients at the end-of-life (EOL) and how they communicate with physicians about them. Design and location: In 17 hospitals in Korea between January and December 2004 we identified 4,042 families of cancer patients. Results: The prevalence of CAM use among cancer patients at the EOL was 37.0%, and 93.1% had used pharmacologic types of agents. The most frequent motive for CAM use was the recommendation of friends or a close relative (53.4%) or a physician (1.6%). Only 42.5% discussed CAM use with their physicians. Satisfaction with CAMS was recalled for 37.1%. The most common reason given for that satisfaction was improvement of emotional or physical well-being, while ineffectiveness was the most common reason given for dissatisfaction. The average cost of CAM during the last month of life was $US 900. CAM use was associated with longer disease periods, primary cancers other than liver, biliary, and pancreatic, and need of support from physicians or religion. Conclusions: CAM use among cancer patients at the EOL was common, not discussed with physicians, and associated with expectation of cure. Expectations were generally unmet while the treatments were a financial burden. Further studies evaluating the effects of CAM at the EOL and factors that enhance communication with the physician are needed.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.27-33
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• 2024

In this article, this study examines the issue of "Physician-assisted Suicide" and how Ramon Sampedro asserts his right to a dignified death through litigation. Ramon, the protagonist of the movie <The Sea Inside> is a patient, severely paralyzed man who has spent more than 26 years in bed. The only thing he can do is verbally ask his family for help. Ramon can no longer support this worthless existence, so he pursues death with dignity. Ramon files a lawsuit to authorize death with dignity within a legal framework, but is denied on the grounds that life is a duty. Ramon eventually fulfills his desire for death with dignity with the help of his friends. Ramon sets up a camera to document the process of his death and introduces the cyanide, which is used in assisted dying, by inhaling cyanide in front of the camera and dying quietly. Although Ramon is not a terminally ill patient, who can blame him for practicing death with dignity as he chooses to do so. We will need to work to build social consensus and legislate for death with dignity for seriously ill patients like Ramon.