• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.252-259
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• 2003

Self-medication is a representative phenomenon in the domain of popular care, originated from perspective of medical pluralism and the pharmacy profession is said to be in the most appropriate position of health care professions to activate self-medication. As any healthcare reform impacts in a country, 2000 institutional separation between medicine and pharmacy implemented in Korea brought a lot of changes in behavior of drug use not only to physicians and pharmacists but also to consumers (patients). In this paper, the reality of self-medication since the institutional separation between medicine and pharmacy was analyzed, based on the empirical data which were collected by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs in 2002. The major finding is that the domain of popular care including self-medication was significantly shrunk, while that of professional care was proportionally expanded. As a result, the following four points were strongly recommended for the purpose of promoting self-medication: i) upgrading the pharmacy education system from 4 year to 6 year level, ii) improvement of continuing education and introduction of GPP (Good Pharmacy Practice), iii) activating 'pharmacal encounter' (i.e., pharmacist-consumer relationship) and iv) promotion of socio-economic research activities and proactive participation in the international self-medication movement of pharmacists in Korea.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.621-628
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• 1998

The "evolution" of a thing, a custom, an organ is thus by no means its progressus toward a goal, even less a logical progressus by the shortest route and with the least expendit ure of force, but a succession of more or less profound, mutually independent processes of subduing, plus the resistances they encounter, the attempts at transformation for the purpose of defense and reaction, and the results of successful counteractions. The form is fluid, but the "meaning" is even more so (Friedrich W. Nietzsche).