Critical Care Crisis and Medical Professionalism

Abstract

There are deep concerns about Korean medical care. It is becoming difficult to find doctor who save life in emergency rooms, operating rooms, intensive care units, and rural hospitals. The so-called ‘critical care’ is shaking in its roots. In the meantime, medical professionalism has lost its way. It does not seem appropriate to attribute the cause of the problem to individual doctors. It is not reprehensible for individuals, who are people before doctors, to choose quality of life over a sense of duty. Not only medical staff on site, but also patients, civic groups, media, and politicians began to recognize the seriousness of the problem. This article examines Korean medical care for serious illnesses by dividing them into ‘symptom and sign’, ‘pathophysiology and diagnosis’, and treatment stages. It was diagnosed that the crisis in Korean medical care was due to the irrationality of philosophyless health care policies, doctors choosing work-life balance over a sense of duty, the collapse of the medical delivery system due to the expansion of large hospitals, and the moral hazard of patients and doctors due to private medical insurance. As a prescription to save Korean medicine, it was proposed to break away from the short-sighted discussion of ‘cost vs capacity’ and build a system that takes into account the restoration of trust between patients and doctors, the enhancement of professionalism, and the transition from normative ethics to positive ethics.