Sound patients with sound doctors

It has turned out that the cause of collective outbreak of hepatitis C among 66 patients at Dana Clinic at Mok-dong, Seoul, is repeatedly reused syringes. Why did the clinic recycle the syringes that merely cost 100 Korean won (approx. 0.09 U.S. dollars)? The doctor of the clinic was rated as a person with disability (3rd grade of brain lesions) with intracerebral hemorrhage and hand tremor. Given the doctor and his wife were also infected with hepatitis C, it would not be reasonable to guess that they reused syringes because it was cumbersome to open a new package. In a word, the clinic seems not to have been equipped with basic awareness of syringe-borne infectious diseases.

The reason a doctor who can hardly move by himself was able to practice medicine was because of lax management of medical license, which is permanently valid once it is issued. There are neither ways to find those doctors who take medicine for dementia nor restriction measures to stop them from practicing medicine. As they only need 24 hours of refresher training every three years, it’s fair to say that medical license is easy to maintain than drivers’ license. Even though the Korean Medical Association formed an “evaluation body for refresher training” last year to manage licensees’ quality, it is bewildering to know that the wife of Dana clinic’s doctor was able to attend the training instead of her husband.

In advanced countries, it is mandatory to re-register a medical license. The U.S. examines physical conditions of doctors every one to four year in order to have them renew their licenses, and require them to go for 50-hour refresher training every year. The U.K. requires doctors to renew their licenses every five years while Australia every one to three years. Only about three nations of Korea, China and Japan have no re-registration system for medical license.

As public controversy is brewing over the need for medical license re-registration system, the association contended, “Under Korean medical environment where medical care centers are forcibly designated, doctors have not been given legitimate protection from the nation,” claiming that economic protection tool is needed for medical professions before people are talking about renewal system of medical license. It seems that they argue doctors’ license is more important than life and health of patients. With medical license renewal system, problematic doctors will be screened out from medical practice, which would, in turn, protect doctors with no issues. Sound doctors can help patients to be sound, too.