• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.49-79
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• 2021

Due to defendant's wrongful act by implant surgery, plaintiff has been suffered serious damages to his face and teeth, and pain caused by establishing implanted teeth. Jeonju Appellate Court sentenced to pay future medical expenses and alimony to the plaintiff in compensation for breach of duty or torts. The ruling is designed to relieve the burden of proof because it is extremely difficult for non-experts to determine whether dentists violated their 'duty of care' or whether there was a causal relationship between damages to medial treatment. It was judged that if symptoms that contributed to the patient's significant outcome occurred during or after surgery, such symptoms could be presumed to have been caused by medical negligence if indirect facts were proven to be other than medical negligence. Originally, the shifting of burden of proof in Germany, has already been developed in medical malpractice case since 1940s. In order to guarantee the patients' right, §630h German Civil Code (BGB) - presumption of negligence in the realization of controllable risk- has been also legislated. BGH (Bundesgerichtshof) has been interested in ensuring that the principle of equality between patients and doctors. So, in this study, we wanted to refer to German precedent cases to analyzing Korean medical malpractice lawsuit. In particular, the decision could be significant in that it approaches closer to allows the shifting burden of proof in drastically growing dental malpractice cases. This is clearly confirmed in the judgment of the dentist's "fault" that "if indirect facts about the symptom or occurrence are proven to be cause other than medical negligence, such symptoms can be presumed to be due to medical negligence."

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.167-193
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• 2007

Medical demand has been increased explosively since health insurance was introduced in 1977. Person has taken a growing interest in increase of medical service supply while that period. We must understand the legal aspects of medical quality management. There have been many legislative efforts for securing the right of patient. Patient's legal right is secured through the declaration of patient's right and all hospital person deal with patients according to the standard and criterion of the declaration of patient's right. The patient's right is set up on a basis of the right to live and the expectation right of patient. It is important to prevent medical accidents because the right of patient's health is violated by medical accident. We must manage well the medical quality to prevent the medical accident. The effort to escalate the medical quality is the best method to decrease the medical dispute. Nowadays a person take a growing interest medical quality. Our government make an effort to secure the medical quality through the legal system to be contained health organization evaluation system.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.311-338
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• 2008

This paper aims to introduce an overview of the regime of expert witness in the medical malpractice litigation, and to provide a plan of how to make it improved. In regard with medical expert witness, several problems, such as time-consuming procedure, non-neural and unclear opinion without reasons provided, have been pointed out for several years. Lack of skill of the court and plaintiff/defender to question the expert is one of many cause to lead to the above problems. What is questioned to the expert? Because expert witness is used in determining probability of negligence, questions to the expert should be selected on the grounds of whether or not to obtain opinions or facts sufficient to let the judge infer negligence in view of the theory of proof burden established by the Supreme Court. In addition, to avoid non-neutral and unclear opinion, it is necessary to question the expert clearly, specifically and scientifically.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.143-174
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• 2019

Our Constitution obliges the state to protect the health of the people, and the Medical Law, which embodied Constitution, sets out in detail the matters related to open the medical institution, and one of them is to prohibit the operation of multiple medical institutions. By the way, virtually multiple medical institutions could be opened and operated because the Supreme Court had interpreted that several medical institutions could be opened if medical activities were not performed directly at the additional medical institution which was opened under the another doctor's license. However, some health care providers opened the several medical institutions with another doctor's license for the purpose of the maximization of profit, and did illegal medical cares like the unfair luring of patients, over-treatment, and commission treatment. Also, realistic problems such as the infringed health rights have arisen. Accordingly, lawmakers had come to amend the Medical Law to readjust the system of opening for medical institution so that medical personnel could not open or operate more than one medical institution for any reason. For this reason, the Constitutional Court recently declared a constitutional decision through a long period of in-depth deliberation because the constitutional petition and the adjudication on the constitutionality of statutes had been filed on whether Article 33 paragraph 8 of the revised medical law is unconstitutional. The Constitutional Court acknowledged the "justice of purpose" in view of the importance of public medical institutions, of the prevention from seduction of for-profit patients and from over-treatment, and of the fact that health care should not be the object of commercial transactions. Given the risk that medical personnel might be subject to outside capital, the concern that the holder of the medical institution's opening certificate and the actual operator may be separated, the principle that the human body and life should not be just a means, and the current system's inability to identify over-treatment, it also acknowledged the 'minimum infringement'. Furthermore, The Constitutional Court judged it is constitutional in compliance with the principle of restricting fundamental rights, such as 'balance of legal interests'. In this regard, legislative complements are needed in order to effectively prevent the for-profit management and the over-treatment the Constitutional Court is concerned about. In this regard, consumer groups actively support the need for legislation, and health care providers groups also agree on the need for legislation. Therefore, the legislators should respect the recent Constitutional Court's decision and in the near future complete the complementary legislation to reflect the people's interests.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.85-116
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• 2013

Korea Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Agency, "K-MEDI" in abbr. herein-after, is established on Apr. 9, 2012 according to the law cited in the title above for the purpose of settling medical disputes in a prompt, fair and efficient manner. Two special professional organizations are established in K-MEDI, one of them is Medical Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Committee(hereinafter referred to as the "Mediation Committee") and the other Medical Malpractice Appraisal Board(hereinaf-ter referred to as the "Appraisal Board"), the mission of the latter is to investigate the facts concerning the disputed medical conduct and to research as to and apprai-se whether the medical conduct was negligent and whether a causal relationship exists. Each panel organized in the Mediation Committee or the Appraisal Board shall be comprised of five mediators or appraisers, including necessarily a judge or a prose-cutor respectively and any disputed case regardless of the scale, the importance or the complicacy shall be handled by a panel. As the system is not thought efficient or economic, the number of the members comprising a panel or total members com-prising the Mediation Committee or the Appraisal Board shoud be adjusted, and the process shoud be versified, including the "Rapid Process," for instance. A petition for the mediation of a medical dispute shall be rejected if the respondent fails to notify K-MEDI of his/her intention to accede to the mediation within 14days from the day on which the petition for the mediation was served(Art. 27 Cl. 7). As the option of an arbitrary decision whether the mediation proceedings shall be commenced or not given to the respondent by the clause is thought unfair, making the process unstable, and moreover, diminishing the purpose of the system established by the law cited above for solving the medical disputes, the clause shoud be amended not to allow the respondent the option of such an arbitrary deci-sion. K-MEDI shall conduct the "Program for Compensation of Medical Accidents"(Art 46) according to which unavoidable injuries caused by the medical accidents in the cour-se of childbirth and the "Advances for Damages"(Art. 47) that are the compensating moneys paid to victims in medical malpractice cases who fail to receive money at all or partly from the operator or the professional of a public health or medical institution although he/she has a final and conclusive right to be paid by them. Some operators or professionals of such institutions claim that both the programs violate their fundamental rights assured by the constitution, and that it be a justifica-tion of refusal to accede to the mediation. As any of the programs needs not to be conducted by K-MEDI, it may be a proper solution to change the conductor of the programs to avoid the unproductive controversy.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.129-162
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• 2008

Nowadays it is important for us to resolute medical disputes. Because a high incidence of medical accidents may be brought about according to many chances of treatment in the operation of health insurance and increasing concern of patient health. Patients and medical doctors have plenty of difficulty in uncomfortable treatment circumstances of a high incidence of medical accidents. It is especially desirable that our society should prevent medical accidents and resolute speedy, fairly and rationally the happened medical disputes. Many legislations were suggested to resolute medical dispute. But legal issue points stress only speedy medical dispute resolution procedure and don't compromise fair and professional procedure. Accordingly these legal arguing points had not been accepted by the National Assembly and people. If the speedy resolution of medical dispute was demanded to solve unsafe treatment circumstances, it is necessitated that the legislation containing legal issue points to procedure is enacted. Of course the interest of patients and doctors to legal issue points must be balanced. Because an arguing points to the reversal of proof burden is consisted of the entity judgement in connection with setting the basis of resolution of medical dispute, the legislation to these is checked carefully.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.195-223
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• 2014

Nurses are medical care providers most closely associated with the national health. Their works are subdivided and specialized, and it is such a factor making nurse's role more important, and with the appearance of specialized nurses, they have secured a position as an independent medical care provider. As the domain of nurse's service becomes broader, there are more accidents and disputes related to nurses. However, there are not many studies conducted on such problems, and even when medical disputes take place related to nurses, the court does not make consistent judgments as a matter of fact. Besides, as the ambiguity of nurse's range of service and the lack of nursing workforce work as a factor causing nurse's medical malpractice, more legal discussions and studies are required to seek proper solutions to such problems. Thus, as a plan to clarify legal issues likely to occur due to nurse's medical practice, this study classified nurse's work into medical assistance practice and other jobs based on their own independent judgments, and proposed establishing concrete regulations on the range of their work, while reviewing common problems extracted from precedents related nurse's medical malpractice. Moreover, while examining Japanese precedents related to the Act of Medical Service Personnel, Nurses and Midwives, which is the sole act of nurses in Japan, this study reviewed the necessity of revising the present nurse-related regulations in Medical Service Act, or enacting a sole act of nurses.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.207-254
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• 2018

The major court rulings delivered in 2017 include the ruling that separated the legal character of denture production agreement signed together with medical care agreement and found a subcontracting dimension in the former, and the ruling that overcame the limitations of the theory of entire appearance of a fetus as discussed in civil law by using the legal principle of insurance which suggests that unborn child insurance takes effect after the contract is signed and the first installment of the premium is paid in. As more court rulings find the medical specialists responsible for accidents and injuries from drugs, some argue that medication counseling by the druggist who makes and dispenses drugs should be upgraded. And with respect to a court ruling that denied the hospital's responsibility for an infection-involving accident even if there were no records on specific measures taken in infection management, some criticized the court for being too conservative in recognizing responsibilities. And with respect to infectious disease management, some criticized the court for its interpretation and application of the facts in the direction of denying the negligence. In addition, some claimed that it is necessary to establish institutional system for hospital infection control and its aid for victims, and to improve the system including the reversal of the burden of proof given the special nature of hospital infections. A number of rulings on the duty to disclose included the one which stated that the specific matter did not require a doctor's explanation as it was explained or the specific medical service would have been performed even if no explanation had been given. There was a greatly controversial ruling over the scope of indemnification, which accepted the occurrence of multiple scars and deformation as disorders while regarding breast as a thoracic organ. And a Supreme Court ruling over interpreting Medical Service Act was criticized as overstepping the boundary allowed in the law.

• The Journal of the Korean life insurance medical association
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• v.16
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• pp.1-11
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• 1997

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.339-382
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• 2008

Medical information is one of significant private information that includes in-dividual's own diverse information. Once opened, it exposes one's health condition and medical history to a third party, which could bring about serious troubles. On this account, the third parties are of much concerns about the information. If medical information collected through various routes is used with another purpose, oilier than the initial intention, it might cause serious results beyond one's control. Thus, it is essential to keep the information confidential. Also, the discrimination based on the medical information ought to be banned because it is likely to happen that exposed information socially stigmatizes a person, being discriminated in a work place or a school when he/she is employed or gets an insurance. In the current system, only medical institutions are responsible for protecting or securing medical records. Despite the information technology development and the increased interests in medical information, there are quite a few limitations in legal, technical, and administrative aspects. All kinds of organizations, involved in collecting and using the information, as well as medical institutions primarily producing and managing it should share the responsibilities.