• 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.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.268-276
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• 2014

Background: World Health Organization considers opioid analgesic use as an important measure in the treatment of pain relief. However, there are limited data about the pattern of opioid analgesic use in tertiary care hospitals in Korea. The aim of this study was to describe the trends in the prescribed amount of the opioid for 13 years from 2000 to 2012 in a single tertiary care hospital. Methods: The data from the prescribed amount of opioid use in patients aged over 18 years were retrieved from medical charts and longitudinal pharmacy records of Seoul National University Hospital. Yearly prescribed amount of opioids were calculated using defined daily dose adjusted by hospital stay (DDD/1000${\bullet}$HS). Results: Over the 13 years of the study period, overall use of opioid has increased by 64.1%. Although, the opioid use by hospitalized patients comprised 98%~99% of total amount of opioid use, the proportions of opioid use by outpatient and by cancer patient increased from 1.1% to 2.2% and from 60.5% to 69.3%, respectively. The use of non-injectable opioids has increased by 47% and that of injectables has increased by 70%. While the amount of codeine and morphine use has decreased, the use of both transdermal and injection formulation of fentanyl has increased dramatically. Also, the use of oxycodone has increased, especially in outpatient setting. Conclusion: This longitudinal study showed that opioid analgesic use in tertiary hospital, especially in outpatient is continuously increasing. Improvement in pain management in tertiary care hospital can be cautiously inferred based on this results.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.260-269
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• 2022

Background: Comprehensive medication management is essential to achieve safe and optimal drug use for the elderly in long-term care facilities (LTCF). This study aimed to develop eligibility criteria for "Comprehensive medication management program in LTCF" using the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method (RAM). Furthermore, we attempted to estimate the number of beneficiaries who met the criteria by analyzing the National Health Insurance claims data. Methods: Twelve criteria were selected initially. We composed a panel of 14 experts with expertise in long-term care. We conducted two survey rounds to reach a consensus. Rating for appropriateness and decision regarding agreement were applied per RAM. We analyzed the National Health Insurance data to estimate the number of LTCF residents who met each eligibility criterion. Results: Of the 11 items agreed upon, ten items were determined to be appropriate. In 2018, 83.6% of 165,994 residents of LTCF met one or more eligibility criteria. The largest number of subjects met the "New residents of LTCF" criterion, followed by "Take high-alert drugs" and "Chronic excessive polypharmacy." Since the items evaluated as most appropriate by the expert panel and those with a large number of subjects were similar, we confirmed the external validity of our criteria. Conclusion: It is worth noting that this is the first attempt to establish the eligibility criteria for medication management in LTCF. Further preliminary research is needed to identify the selected subjects' drug-related problems and revise the criteria according to the results.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.277-285
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to provide the comparative study results for the purpose of the developing continuing professional educational systems for Korean pharmacists. The professional continuing educational systems of the UK, USA, Japan and Korea were analyzed. General Pharmaceutical Council in UK controls the pharmacy professions for the protection of the health of the citizens in UK and certifies the schools of pharmacy and the continuing education providers. The USA and Japan have the several accreditation bodies for the pharmacy education and the continuing pharmaceutical education. However, the quality assurance systems in Korea for the continuing education and specialty programs are not implemented, yet. The renewal system of the pharmacist license should be introduced like the health care providers like doctors to improve professionalism. Finally, it is recommended that all of these things should be done by a single administrative authority such as Korean Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.5-30
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• 2005

Globalization has conflicting effects on pharmaceutical policies. A change into a 'populist competitive nation' due to globalization strengthens policies to reduce drug manufacturing costs while the WTO's TRIPS Agreement that is affected by multinational pharmaceutical companies increases drug manufacturing costs by bolstering the patent rights on new drugs. Currently, the independency of populist nations' policies to reduce drug manufacturing cost is being compromised because multinational organizations(such as the European Union) which represents the interests of the multinational pharmaceutical companies put restrictions on the pharmaceutical policies of populist nations for purposes of promoting the industrial goals of the multinational companies. Korea is no exception. Up until the late 1990s, the main feature of the pharmaceutical policies in Korea was keeping the drug price at the cost level based on a growth-driven ideology, and this was Korea's unique policy tools as a developing nation. However, the increase in the power of multinational pharmaceutical companies currently infringes on the independency of Korea's pharmaceutical policies. Expensive imported drugs were originally covered by the national health insurance plan, but starting from 1999 such drugs began to be covered by the plan. After separation of medical and pharmaceutical services, the use of expensive drugs was increased, and the Korean government planned to introduce the reference price policy in order to contain the cost of the national health insurance plan. However, due to pressures from the U.S. government as well as multinational pharmaceutical companies, implementation of the policy has been postponed. In addition, due to a pressure from the U.S. government, a working group was created which would affect the health care policy of the Korean government. Discussions so far on globalization was about whether the change into populist competitive nations due to globalization resulted in the reduction of welfare spending. However, this study shows not only the reduction of health care cost through policies to reduce drug manufacturing costs but increase in welfare spending by raising the strengths of multinational pharmaceutical companies that are for-profit providers of welfare service. While focusing on the contradictory effects of globalization on pharmaceutical policies of a nation, this study looked at how these conflicting effects end up promoting the interests of multinational pharmaceutical companies by examining the Korean case.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.282-287
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• 2010

Appropriate drug information is essential in pharmaceutical care practice. In recent years, educating patients with their prescription and drug therapy is becoming an increasingly important aspect of health care. Appropriate drug information has been shown to improve patients' adherence to their medication and the results of pharmacotherapy. The purpose of this study was to study patients' sources of drug information and their preferences in Korea. This study was a 11-questionnaire survey conducted from February 8, 2010 to February 25, 2010. Major sources of drug information used by respondents, proportions of respondents who received drug information on administration, dosage, indication, or warnings and precautions, sources of drug information which patients prefer, and the reasons of their preferences were studied. Of the 303 respondents, the most common sources of drug information were pharmacists (29.7%), doctors (23.8%), and the Internet (17.2%). There were significant differences according to sources of drug information in proportions of respondents who received drug information on administration, dosage, indication, or warnings and precautions. Patients preferred pharmacists as a drug information source the most (38.9%), and the reasons were reliability (72.0%) and easy to use (28.0%). Based on the results of this study, further studies should be conducted to establish the best way to provide appropriate drug information for patients and improve the results of pharmacotherapy.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.434-440
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• 2017

S-methyl-$\small{L}$-methionine (SMM), also known as vitamin U, is commercially available as skin care cosmetic products for its wound healing and photoprotective effects. However, the low skin permeation expected of SMM due to its hydrophilic nature with a log P value of -3.3, has not been thoroughly addressed. The purpose of this study thus was to evaluate the effect of skin permeation enhancers on the skin permeation/deposition of SMM. Among the enhancers tested for the in vitro skin permeation and deposition of SMM, oleic acid showed the most significant enhancing effect. Moreover, the combination of oleic acid and ethanol further enhanced in vitro permeation and deposition of SMM through hairless mouse skin. Furthermore, the combination of oleic acid and ethanol significantly increased the in vivo deposition of SMM in the epidermis/dermis for 12 hr, which was high enough to exert a therapeutic effect. Therefore, based on the in vitro and in vivo studies, the combination of oleic acid and ethanol was shown to be effective in improving the topical skin delivery of SMM, which may be applied in the cosmetic production process for SMM.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.36-40
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• 2016

MRA1997 is a highly conserved protein from mycobacterial strains. However, no structural and functional information is associated with it. Thus, to obtain details about structure and function of this protein, we have utilized NMR spectroscopy. The recombinant MRA1997 was highly purified and its DNA binding mode was characterized. The tertiary structure of MRA1997 was modeled on the basis of our NMR chemical shift data combined with the webserver CS23D. The binding of MRA1997 with DNA was first monitored by electrophoresis mobility shift assays. The residues involved in DNA binding are identified using NMR chemical shift perturbation experiments. Based on our study, we suggest that MRA1997 interacts with DNA and may play an important role in Mycobacterium tuberculosis physiology.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetic Resonance Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.117-125
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• 2009

HP0062 is an 86 residue hypothetical protein from Helicobacter pylori strain 26695. HP0062 was identified ESAT-6/WXG100 superfamily protein based on structure and sequence alignment and also contains leucine zipper domain sequence. Here, we report the sequence-specific backbone resonance assignment of HP0062. About 97.7% of all $^1H_N,\;^{15}N,\;^{13}C_{\alpha},\;^{13}C_{\beta}\;and\;^{13}C=O$ resonances were assigned unambiguously. We could predict the secondary structure of HP0062 by analyzing the deviation of the $^{13}C_{alpha}\;and\;^{13}C_{\beta}$ chemical shifts from their respective random coil values. Secondary structure prediction shows that HP0062 consist of two ${\alpha}$-helices. This study is a prerequisite for determining the solution structure of HP0062 and can be used for the study on interaction between HP0062 and DNA and other Helicobacter pylori proteins.

• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 1999.06a
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• pp.2-22
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• 1999

To maximize the services of phatmacists, we studied the best national liscensing examination for improvement of pharmacist. Among 650 Pharmacist who are posed the questions, 282 pharmacist such as professor in college of pharmacy(46), pharmacists in drug store and hospital (136), administrators in The Ministry of The Health and Welfare(48) and researchers and phamacists in pharmaceutical company (52) replied it. By analyzing these questionares, the results were as follows: In the Korean national liscensing examination for medial care team, pharmacist has been examed over two times the subjects as compared with another national examinations for medical and public health liseneses and 6-year curriculum of medical school. Now, the national examination for pharmacy liscence have been tested the basic subjects such as pharmaceutical analytical chem-istry, medicinal chemistry, biochemistry, etc., but almost demander, pharmacist who has been engaged about over 80% in the drug stores and hospital pharmacy, want to have exam pharmacy practics which are clinical pharmacy, pathohysiology and pharma-cotherapy of diseases like The United State of America, but not basic chemisty and biology. If the Korean liscensing examination for pharmacy will be changed like America, pharmacy education in the college of phar-macy will be progressed in detail. There are no clerkships and internships in the pharmaceutical education program in Korea, and so most of pharmacist want to have 6-year curriculum for pharmacy education and to test the pharmacy practice for Doctor of Pharmacy(Pharm. D.) but not basic science.