• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.309-335
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• 2010

This study is a paper reviewed legal status of medical personnel and issues of law on recently discovered medical records. As the increase of medical personnel who have gone through the administrative disposal in regards to the medical records, it is needed to examine the legal issue or dispute on the medical records under the current law. Medical records are the statement on patient's medical conditions made by the medical personnel. This records are used as important source for patient's further treatment. This becomes the communication route between the patients and the other medical personnel, and it provides the patients a right to find out their medical information. According to the Medical Service Act (Article 21), a medical personnel shall prepare respectively a record book of medical examination and treatment. And medical personnel shall make a signature. Furthermore, the medical personnel or the opener of the medical institutions must preserve the record book (including an electronic medical record). Meanwhile, the issues of a ban on false entry, additional record, revision or manipulation on the medical record have been recently on the rise. This paper briefly examined the major issues in regards to the medical records. It especially clarified the legal duty on medical records and its major-contentious-issues. At the same time, it pointed out the problems of the unreasonable over interpretation of the law. Furthermore, this suggested the guidelines for the further discussion and review.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2011

This study was conducted to investigate the clear concept of patient safety and obtain theoretical evidences. Methods Research was conducted using Walker & Avant's conceptual analysis process. Results: Patient safety was defined as a activity that minimizes and removes possible errors and injuries to patients. It includes a basic desire to secure the patient's right to safety, and the legal regulations and duties of medical teams. The results of the establishment of a safety culture are patient-centered medical treatment and caring. Antecedents were found to be open and clear communications, continuous education and training for health care personnel, sufficient allocation of qualified personnel, cooperation among departments, improvements in the recognition of patient safety. Consequences were found to be the provision of high quality medical care and treatment, and increase in patient satisfaction. Conclusion: Patient safety as defined by the results of this study will contribute to the foundation of institutionalization of the pursuit of patient safety and creation of a hospital culture focusing on patient safety as a first priority.

• The Korean Journal of Emergency Medical Services
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.19-33
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• 2009

Purpose : To check the legal relation between rescue team and patient as well as legal responsibility for patient's damage intentionally or erroneously caused by rescue member, a public official, in the performance of relevant job ; to prevent legal dispute over rescue team and to present program for fair settlement of dispute and equitable and feasible burden of damage. Method : First, the legal principle of Civil Law, Criminal Law and Administrative Law related to the theme of this research will be investigated around research by literature. Second, the case of dispute related to rescue team will be introduced. Result: 1. If 119 rescue members as a public official intentionally or erroneously cause damage to patient in the performance of job, they shall bear civil, criminal and administrative responsibility. They shall bear civil responsibility for indemnity for damage due to default or tort. The typical criminal responsibility includes accidental homicide arising out of duty, preparing falsified official document, dereliction of duty, etc. In the administrative side, the state is responsible for indemnity for peculiar status of the rescue member, public official. 2. Though raising civil petition or legal dispute over unsatisfactory rescue service may be reasonable to guarantee the right of nation, such action may cause stress to rescue member as well as may lead to mental shrinking and defensive attitude only to take the basic first aid treatment which has low possibility of mistake instead of active first aid treatment so as to avoid legal responsibility. 3. The program that may prevent legal dispute over 119 rescue team includes expansion of manpower specialized in first aid treatment, enhancement of education on legal environment, development and application of standard job guideline, formation of mutual trust with patient, detailed explanation, preparing and keeping minute record, improvement of the rescue members' ability of first aid treatment and development of medical instruction mode. Conclusion : The best policy is to prevent legal dispute. If it is impossible to basically exclude the possibility of dispute, however, we need to make effort to minimize the occurrence, settle fairly and divide damage equitably and feasibly. To improve the preventible death rate of our first aid system to the level of advanced country, 119 rescue team which is in charge of the stage before hospital needs to positively enforce special first aid by improving the qualitative level of rescue service and to strive to prevent legal dispute that may occur in the process.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.37-80
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• 2022

By analyzing informed consent and the refusal of emergency medical treatment (called patient dumping) under the current Emergency Medical Service Act, this study suggests that an emergency medical professional is only liable for patient dumping if their duty to protect the patient's life takes precedence over the patient's right to self-determination. In emergency medical situations, as in general medical situations, medical treatment should be performed after the emergency medical professional informs the patient about the medical treatment, including its necessity and methods, and obtains consent from the patient. Refusing or evading the performance of emergency medical services on the excuse of the informed consent not considering a waiver or alteration of informed consent requirements without reasonable reasons violates the Emergency Medical Service Act and thus makes an emergency medical professional liable to administrative disposition or criminal penalty. In other words, depending on the existence of a waiver of alteration of the informed consent, patient dumping may be established. If the patient is a minor or has no decision-making ability, and their legal representative makes a decision against the patient's medical interests, the opinion of the legal representative is not unconditionally respected. A minor also has the right to decide over their body, and the decisions of their legal representatives should be in the patient's best interests. If the patient refuses treatment, in principle, the obligation of life protection of emergency medical professionals is the top priority. However, making these decisions in the aforementioned situations in the emergency medical field is difficult because of the absence of explicit regulations regarding these exceptional problems. This study aims to organize the following precedents of the Supreme Court of Korea. The court states that, when balancing the conflicting interests between the duty to provide emergency medical service and the duty to inform is unavoidable for emergency medical professionals, they should put the duty to protect the patient's life ahead of the duty to inform if the patient's life matters. Exceptionally, when a patient has seriously considered whether they should receive treatment before the emergency medical situation, their right to self-determination can be considered equal to the obligation of emergency medical professionals to provide emergency medical treatment. This research also suggests that an amendment of the Emergency Medical Service Act should include the following. First, the criteria for determining the decision-making ability of emergency patients should consist of medical content. Second, additional consent from a medical professional is unnecessary for first-aid treatment. Finally, new provisions for emergency medical obligations for minors, new provisions for the decision standard when there are conflicting opinions about the treatment of a patient, and new penalty provisions for professionals who suspend emergency medical examinations and treatments need to be established.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.413-459
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• 2008

The Law has intervened to define rare circumstances in which a person should choose continuing life in United States. On the one hand, the law has traditionally acted to preservelife and to respect the sanctity of life. On the other hand, one's control over one's own body, and the right to determine what kind of medical care one will receive, is equally well respected and historically grounded. The competent patients have the right to forgo life-sustaining treatment, courts in United States have left many unanswered questions about the nature of that right. The right to choose to forgo life-sustaining treatment is a manifestation of a patient's autonomy interest. In United States, The Karen Quilan case gave rise to legislative activity in the host of state capitals, and several states had adopted statutes that formally recognized some forms of written directives describing some circumstances in which certain kinds of medical care could be terminated. These statues were sometimes dominated 'living will' acts, sometimes 'right to die' acts and ocasionally 'natural death' acts. Today virtually every state has produced a living will statue. In Korea, courts do not permit a terminally ill person to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment. Living wills apply in case of terminal illness owing to a defect in legislation. Now In Korea, these lively dispute of legal policy on the preconditions and concrete procedure of living will act and natural death act. Through the legislation of living will act and natural death act, we should prepare some circumstances to respect patient's autonomy on the right to die. We should frame the cultural standard to make a decision of forgoing life-sustainin1g treatment under the discreet procedure.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.53-75
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• 2008

The end of life problem in the United States has been evolved from the development of concept of brain death over last 50 yr. The invention of ventilator and the development of emergency medicine also played a key role to elongate the end stage of life and which caused the American people to ask a question about the patients self determination and refusing the unwarranted medical treatment in the view of the death with dignity. With regard to the patient unable to self determination, surrogate decision was also considered. To guarantee the self determination, The patient self determination act also enacted on the level of Federal regulation in 1990s. But no law has effectively dealt with the situation when medical treatment became futile. Along with the significant debates on literature and court cases. The American Medical Association's Council on Medical and Judical Affairs presented formal opinion and the Texas was the first states to regulate the medical futile situation in 1999. Even though that definition was in controversy, the concept of medical futility mainly focused on the doctors' right to refuse the treatment.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.37-63
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• 2023

In medical litigation, there are various cases where a doctor's 'explanation' of a patient becomes problematic. Medical explanations and guidance are required from the doctor, starting from the beginning of diagnosis, through treatment processes such as surgery, when hospitalization is necessary for treatment, during hospitalization, upon discharge, and after discharge. Furthermore, notification from the doctor or medical institution may be requested regarding the economic costs that will be incurred due to medical treatment. South Korea's judiciary has been developing legal principles regarding such doctor's explanations by distinguishing between explanations for obtaining consent for medical treatment and medical explanations related to guidance on patient treatment methods, taking into account related laws such as the stage of treatment and the Medical Service Act. Additionally, the Constitutional Court recently ruled on the non-benefit cost notification system linked to the explanation of economic costs. However, holding a doctor accountable solely because the doctor's explanation was insufficient has aspects that do not correspond to the actual situation in clinical reality, and may have a reflexive disadvantage that results in a decline in legal rights. Therefore, the doctor's explanation needs to be examined from both perspectives: guaranteeing the patient's right to self-determination and protecting his or her right to decision.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.179-211
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• 2007

To succeed the claim of medical malpractice litigation, the patient as a plaintiff should establish the medical fault of a physician as a defendant, and the causation between the fault and damages. Because of the extraordinary nature of medical province, however, this application of a legal principles is rigorous with the patient. In addition, given the causation between the validation of physician's fault and damage is not attested, patient is not awarded anything. In order to overcome a difficulty of patient's verification and ensure the right to fair process, it was demonstrated the lightening of burden of proof in medical malpractice litigation and the acceptance of the responsibility for an illegal act in a prescribed range in the absence of the causation between the physician's fault and damage. This paper deals with the judgement of causation and burden of proof in medical malpractice litigation, and the acceptance of responsibility in the absence of the causation between the physician's fault and damage. Also, this study recommends a tendency of our precedent through the comparative case method of ours and Japan.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.37-73
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• 2020

Medical practice with medical adaptability is not illegal. Consent to medical practice is also not intended to exclude causes of Illegality. The patient's consent to medical practice is the exercise of the right to self-determination, and the patient's right to self-determination is take shape through the doctor's information. If a doctor violates his duty to inform, failure to inform or lack of inform constitutes an act of illegality of omission in itself. As a result, the legal interest of self-determination is violated. The patient has the right to know and make decisions on his or her own, even when it is not connected to the benefit of life and body as the subject of the body. If that infringed and lost, the non-property damage shall be recognized and the immaterial damage must be compensated. On the other hand, the violation of the duty of information does not belong to deny the compensation for physical damage. Which the legal interest violated by violation of the obligation to inform is the self-determination, and loss of opportunity of choice is recognized as ordinary damage. However, if the opportunity of choice was lost because of the infringement of the right to self-determination and the patient could not choice the better way, that dose not occur plainly bad results, under the prove of these causal relationship, that bad results could be compensated. But the unexpectable damage could not be compensated, because the physical damage is considered as the special damage due to the violation of the right of the self-determination.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.83-139
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• 2019

Recognition of liability for damages due to medical malpractice has been developed largely on the basis of two paths. First is the case where there is an error in a physician's medical practice and this infringes upon the legal interests of life and body, and the compensation for monetary and non-monetary damages incurred from such infringement on life and body becomes an issue. Second is the case where there is a breach of a physician's duty of explanation that results in a infringement on the patient's right of autonomous decision, and the compensation for non-monetary damages incurred from such infringement becomes an issue. However, even if there is a medical error, since it is difficult to prove the causation between the medical error of a physician and the infringement upon legal interests, the physician's responsibility for damage compensation is denied in some cases. Consider, for example, a case where a patient is already in the final stage of cancer and has a very low possibility of a complete recovery even if proper treatment is received from the physician. Here, it is not appropriate to refuse recognition of any damage compensation based on the reason that the possibility of the patient dying is very high even in the absence of a medical error. This is so because, at minimum, non-monetary damage such as psychological suffering is incurred due to the physician's medical error. In such a case, our courts recognize on an exceptional basis consolation money compensation for losing the chance to receive proper treatment. However, since the theoretical system has not been established in minutiae, what comes under the benefit and protection of the law is not clearly explicated. The recent discourse on compensating for damages incurred by patients, even when the causation between the physician's medical error and infringement upon the legal interests of life and body is denied, by establishing a new legal interest is based on the "legal principle of loss of opportunity for treatment." On what should be the substance of the new legal interest, treatment possibility argument, expectation infringement argument, considerable degree of survival possibility infringement argument and loss of opportunity for treatment argument are being put forth. It is reasonable to see the substance of this protected legal interest as "the benefit of receiving treatment appropriate to the medical standard" according to the loss of opportunity for treatment argument. The above benefit to the patient is a value inherent to human dignity that should not be infringed upon or obstructed by anyone, and at the same time, it is a basic desire regarding life and a benefit worthy of protection by law. In this regard, "the benefit of receiving treatment appropriate to the medical standard" can be made concrete as one of the general personal rights related to psychological legal interest.