• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.190-205
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• 1994

Respect for human life and respect for human dignity are two basic values to which organized nursing has urged its members to adhere in their service to mankind. Thus it is the nurses’ duty to provide health care in support of sustenance of life and to pay respect for the patient’s right to dignity. In practice, however, nurses may experience dilemmas between these duties much due to the de velopment of modern advanced techniques. These dilemmas have become more complex and difficult to resolve. Nurses are often faced with situations in which the terminally ill refuse professional care, posing serious conflicts between respect for human life and respect for human rights to self-determination. In such cases, resolution of the problem is not a simple matter, thus requires intensive study into the ethical questions related to the situation. The purpose of this study was to identify ethical problems that nurses experience in caring for terminally ill patients and explore the ways to the resolution of problems within the context of the situations. The methodology used for the study was a case study method which ‘New Casuistry’ proposed by Jonsen & Toulmin(1988) and the ‘Specified Principlism’ proposed by Degrazia(1992) as an alternative to old deductive and intuitive method. Cases were developed through semistructured indepth interviews according to the casutistry method. A total of seven nurses were interviewd who were caring for therminally ill patients. Four cases out of a total 14 cases were related to the topic. Through the case analysis it became evident that nurses appreciated other values more often than respect for the patient’s right to self-determination. These other values were convenience and efficiency in nursing practice in case 1, preservation of life above all other values in case 2, provision of nursing care to fulfill the nurse’s professional obligation at most in case 3, and respect for the family’s demand against the patient’s wish in case 4. This study showed that the most important ethical problems were conflict between respect for the patient’s right to self-determination and sustenance of life for the fulfillment of professional obligation. For this problem, benefit /burden analysis from the perspective of the patient and family for the promotion of patient’s wellbeing may be a way to resolve the conflict. Further, through these analysis it was shown that physicians’ and families’ opinions dominated in the decision - making and the opinions of nurses’ and patients’ tended not to be reflected. Thus the patient's right to his or her care was not readily respected. To solve this problem. nurses should make efforts to communicate reciprocally with their patients, family members and physicians in an effort to respect for their patient’s rights to life and diginity from the point of view and values of the patient. It is also important that nurses provide good basic nursing care up to the time of death regardless of decisions about providing or not aggressive treat-ment for chronically and terminally ill patients.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.57-66
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• 1982

This study was undertaken to delineate the relationship between numerical score and the amount of nursing hours required in the nursing process. Score was a numerical description of the patients functional nursing needs. Therefore this study focused on standard nursing hours required by patient's self-care status. This study observed the 62 patients and 15 R.N. in H. university hospital from Aug. 7, 1982 to Aug. 13, 1982. 1. For the first time, each head nurse assessed self-care status by Schoening's self-care score-Minimal care patient (self-care score: 23, 24) was placed in Group Ⅰ, intermediate care patient (self-care score: 11∼22) was Group Ⅱ, and special care score: 0∼10) was Group Ⅲ. 2. We observed and recorded the nursing care received from nurses according to patient's group. (8AM∼4PM) 3. And, We observed and recorded the activities of nurses in order to determine standard nursing hours required. (8AM∼4PM) 4. If we apply the content of paragraph 3 to paragraph 2, we will predict the number of patient that nurse can care during day time by self-care status. The following results were obtained: 1) Patient's mean self-care score were Group I : 23.9 score Group Ⅱ：17.8 score Group Ⅲ : 1.6 score 2) Nursing hours required by patient's physical function(self-care status) status were Group I : 35 min. Group Ⅱ: 47.5 min. Group Ⅲ : 104.6 min. 3) Nurse's nursing time and distribution required in nursing activities during day duty were A.D.L. : 84.3min. (17.56％) Functional nursing activities : 279.9min. (58.31 ％) Education ＆ Emotional support : 11.3min. (2.35%) Task unrelated patients : 54min. (11.25%) Non Productive nursing care : 50. 5min. (10.52％) 4) Mean nursing hours required by each patient and the number of patient that nurse can rare during day duty by self-care status were Group I : 38.6min. 11.1 patients/1 nurse Group Ⅱ : 51.1min: 8.4 patients/1 nurse Group Ⅲ： 108.2min. 4 patients/1 nurse It seems reasonable that this could be done effectively as each-unit has an established standard for hours required, This not only allows time for planning of staff but helps to avoid the very human inclination to predict excessive staffing requirements by placing the majority of patients in high care group.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.319-382
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• 2008

As a withdrawing care's study, the purpose of this study is searching about withdrawing care's acceptance and circumstances through Bora-mae hospital case(chapter 1). Withdrawing life-sustaining treatment has various forms. Though the meaning of euthanasia, death with dignity, natural death, physician assisted suicide are duplicated, the meaning of those are different slightly. Firstly, this study looks about the difference of the those meaning and acceptance range(condition) by withdrawing care's forms(chapter 2). Bora-mae hospital case sentenced guilty about physician who discharged incompetent patient who was after surgery by patient's wife determination. This Bora-mae case that sentenced guilty about discharge against medical advise(DAMA) that is regarded to custom has brought intensive confliction of legal, social, medical aspect, Bora-mae hospital case has many legal problems. First, as to criminal law rule 250(murder), the problem is whether discharge and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment is commission or omission. this study concluded omission(district court: omission, appeal, supreme court: commission). Because legal denounce point of discharge and medical treatment withdrawing is omission that physician who is obligatory on patient to cure. If physician's act is regarded omission, it is necessary to determine whether he has guardian status and obligation. Without guardian status and obligation, omission crime can't exist. This study decided that physician had guardian status and obligation and foundation of guardian status was pre-action or acceptance of emergency patient. Physician's medical treatment duty finished when patient(or patient's guardian) demands discharge. But when patient death is foreseen and other possible treatment does not exist, his duty of life prolonging treatment does not finish. This originate from physician's social responsibility and public status that limits patient's private liberty. This study regarded physician's action as accomplice about whether physician's discharging action is accomplice or the principal offender(district court: the principal offender, appeal, supreme court: accomplice). Though the principal offender needs criminal determination and action, there is no this common determination and functional action control of physician in Bora-mae case(chapter 3). Bora-mae hospital case partly originated from deficiency of legal, institutive system including medical security system shortage, the instruction is 1. medical security system strengthening, 2. hospital ethical committee's activity strengthening, 3. institutionalization of withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, 4. acceptance of pre-decision making system, 5. sufficient persuasion of physician for patient and faithful writing of medical paper, 6. respect for patients' self-determination and rights, 7. consciousness's changing for withdrawing life-sustaining treatment and persistent education about medical ethics(chapter 4). Considering Bora-mae case, medical sector is not the dead ground of a criminal punishment. Intervention of criminal law in medical sector give rise to ill effect, that is, excess medical examination and treatment, safeguard treatment, delay of discharge from a hospital. Because sufficient guarantee of life becomes mere empty slogan under situation that impose a burden of heavy cost to family or hospital, public and systematic solution should be given(chapter 5).

• 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.17 no.2
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• pp.145-173
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• 2016

A patient's Right to Self-Determination or his/her Right of Autonomy in the Republic of Korea has traditionally been understood as being composed of two elements. The first, is the patient's Right to Know as it pertains to the physician's Duty to Report [the Medical Situation] to the patient; the second, is the patient's Right to Consent and Right of Refusal as it pertains to the physician's Duty to Inform [for Patient's Consent]. The legal and ethical positions pertaining to the patient's autonomous decision, particularly those in the interest of the patient's not wanting to know about his/her own body or medical condition, were therefore acknowledged as passively expressed entities borne from the patient's forfeiture of the Right to Know and Right to Consent, and exempting the physician from the Duty to Inform. The potential risk of adverse effects rising as a result of applying the Informed Consent Dogma to situations described above were only passively recognized, seen merely as a preclusion of the Informed Consent Dogma or a denial of liability on part of the physician. In short, the legal measures that guarantee a patient's 'Wish for Ignorance' are not currently being understood and acknowledged under the active positions of the patient's 'Right Not to Know' and the physician's 'Duty to Consideration' (such as the duty not to inform). Practical and theoretical issues arise absent the recognition of these active positions of the involved parties. The question of normative evaluation of cases where a sizable amount of harm has come up on the patient as a result of the physician explaining to or informing the patient of his/her medical condition despite the patient previously waiving the Right to Consent or exempting the physician from the Duty to Inform, is one that is yet to be addressed; that of ascertaining direct evidence/legal basis that can cement legality to situations where the physician foregoes the informing process under consideration that doing so may cause harm to the patient, is another. Therefore it is the position of this paper that the Right [Not to Know] and the Duty [to Consideration] play critical roles both in meeting the legal normative requirements pertaining to the enrichment of the patient's Right to Self-Determination and the prevention of adverse effects as it pertains to the provision of [unwanted] medical information.

• Journal of Korean Academic Society of Home Health Care Nursing
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.5-13
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• 2004

The home health care industry has grown rapidly and can be expected to continue to grow in the foreseeable future. Home health care refers to the practice of nursing applied to clients with a health condition in the clients place of residence. clients and their designated care givers are the focus at home health nursing practice. The goal of care is to initiate. manage and evaluate the resources needed to promote the clients optimal level of well-being and function. Nursing activities necessary to achieve this goal may warrant preventive maintenance and restorative emphases to prevent potential problems from developing. Many project program were suggested home health care model for Korea's health care system and policy direction for expansion and establishment of home health care .But the aim of this paper is to provide on overview for theoretical frame work in home health care. Theories and conceptual frameworks or models are important nursing because they define and guide the boundaries of professional practice and identify key nurse-patient-caregiver relationships that emerge with caring. Following is the research with an investigation of the literature review in the University of Arizona international medline database, In conclusion, are as followers: First, many nursing theorists have had a tremendous impact on nursing practice. the following highlights those nursing theorists that are particularly helpful in understanding home health care. 1. Florence Nightingale : Our earliest theoretical legacy. Nightingale's believes are reflected in basic infection control practice such as hand washing and infectious waste disposal and are key nursing interventions in home care. 2. Martha Roger's :Science of unitary human beings theory. Rorger's believed that the focus of shared. non invasive healing modelities is the human environmental field rather than direct physical care. These modelities continue to evolve as our awareness (reflecting greater diversity, faster rhythms, motions, and ways of knowing) transcends time and space, allowing individuals to get in touch with their integral nature of unbroken wholeness. On people as ever changing energy fields have special relevance in home care especially with hospice and palliative care applications. 3. Madeline Leininger's; Transcultural nursing theory. Home care nurses move through a variety of communities and often care for patients from different cultural back grounds. Therefore Leininger's work has a good that with home care because home care nursing practice is very culturally focused. 4. Dorothea Orem's : Self care deficit theory. Orem's theory views care as something to be performed by both nurses and patients. The role of the nurse is to provide education and support that help patients acquire the necessary activities to perform self-care. Orem's theory is foundational to have care because it begins to truly acknowledge the role of the patient in managing his or her own health. which is referred to as self-care. 5. Margaret Neuman's; Health as expending consciousness theory. Neuman believes that health compasses disease and reflects an underlying pattern of person-environment interaction. A key application of 'Neuman's work to home care is for nurses to understand that health and illness do not necessarily exist at opposite ends of a continuum. 6. Jean Watson's: Theory of human caring. Watson's theory of human caring in nursing proposes human caring as the moral ideal of nursing. Nurses participate human caring to protect, enhance and preserve humanity by assisting individuals to fing meaning in illness. pain and existence and to help others gain self knowledge. self control. and self healing such thinking lends richness to theory development. as well as clinical practice in home care. Second, Robin Rice : Dynamic self determination for self care. (A theoretical framework for home care) Dynamical self determination for self care can be useful to home care nurses in a variety of ways. As research tool it can be reflected in the interview process when the home visit. The home care nurse's role is that of facilitator of patient self-determination for self care through numerous strategies. including patient education and case management.

• 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.

• Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.69-79
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• 2023

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the involvement of patients who died from hematologic neoplasms in the decision-making process surrounding the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment (LST). Methods: A total of 255 patients diagnosed with hematologic neoplasms who ultimately died following decisions related to LST during their end-of-life period at a university hospital were included in the study. Data were retrospectively obtained from electronic medical records and analyzed utilizing the chi-square test, independent t-test, and logistic regression. Results: In total, 42.0% of patients participated in the decision-making process regarding LST for their hematologic neoplasms, while 58.0% of decisions were made with family involvement. Among these patients, 65.1% died in general wards and 34.9% in intensive care units (ICUs) as a result of decisions such as the suspension of LST. The period from the LST decision to death was longer when the decision was made by the patient (average, 27.15 days) than when it was made by the family (average, 7.48 days). Most decisions were made by doctors and family members in the ICU, where only 20.6% of patients exercised their right to make decisions regarding LST, a rate considerably lower than 79.4% observed in general wards. Decisions to withhold or withdraw LST were more commonly made by patients themselves than by their families. Conclusion: The key to discussing the decision to suspend hospice care and LST is respecting the patient's self-determination. If a patient is lucid prior to admission to the ICU, considerations about suspending LST should involve the patient input.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.3-32
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• 2020

Under the Korean case law, physicians are obliged to disclose or inform the risk associated with a specific treatment to their patients before they perform the treatment. If they fail to do this, they are liable to compensate pain and sufferings. If the patient can establish that he or she would not have consented at all to the treatment had he or she been informed, the physicians are liable to compensate all the loss incurred by the treatment. In this article, the author examines the legitimacy of this case law from the perspective of legal doctrine as well as its practical affect on the medical practice and the furtherance of self-determination of the patient. The fundamental findings are as follows: The case law that has physicians who failed to inform treatment risk compensate pain and sufferings for the infringement of the right of self-determination seems to be a disguised and reduced compensation of all the loss based on the possible malpractice, which cannot be justified in view of the general principles of tort liability. It is necessary to adhere to the requirements of causation and imputation between the failure to inform treatment risk and the specific patient's consent to the treatment. If this causation and imputation is established, all the loss should be compensated. Otherwise, there shall be no liability. The so-called hypothetical consent defence shall be regarded as a part of causation between the failure to inform and the consent. The suggested approach can preserve the essence of physician-patient relationship and fit for the very logic of informed consent better.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.355-401
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• 2013

The first legislation for terminal health-care decision was California's Natural Death Act (NDA) of 1976 that permitted any adult person to execute a directive directing the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures. Advance directive legislation has subsequently progressed on a state-by-state basis. By 1992, all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia, had passed legislation to legalize some form of advance directive. This state legislation, however, has resulted in an often fragmented, incomplete, and sometimes inconsistent set of rules. Statutes enacted within a state often conflict and conflicts between statutes of different states are common. In an increasingly mobile society where an advance health-care directive given in one state must frequently be implemented in another, there is a need for greater uniformity. In 1993, the Uniform Law Commissioners approved the Uniform Health-Care Decisions Act (UHCDA) in order to bring order to the existing chaos. Unfortunately, the Commissioners waited too long to act. By the time the UHCDA was approved, nearly all states had passed legislation governing advance directives. Consequently, the UHCDA has achieved only a limited success, picking up but one or two enactments a year. The UHCDA is currently in effect in around 10 states: Alabama, Alaska, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, New Mexico, Tennessee, Wyoming. In these states the previous laws related to the subjects have been all repealed. The overall objective of the UHCDA is to encourage the making and enforcement of advance health care directives including living will or individual instruction, power of health-care attorney and to provide a means for making health care decisions for those who have failed to plan. The U. S. House of Representatives in 1991 enacted the Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA). The Act stipulates that all hospitals receiving Medicaid or Medicare reimbursement must ascertain whether patients have or wish to have advance directives. The Patient Self- Determination Act does not create or legalize advance directives; rather it validates their existence in each of the states. Now in America, terminal health-care decision or advance directive for health care is common and universal system. The problem, however, is how to let more people use these good tools to make their lives more beautiful and honorable.