20150325-Choo

THE WORLD MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, INC.
L’ASSOCIATION MEDICALE MONDIALE, INC
ASOCIACION MEDICA MUNDIAL, INC
Centre International de Bureaux
Immeuble A «Keynes» Website : www.wma.net Postal Address :
13, chemin du Levant Telephone : (33) 4 50 40 75 75 Boîte Postale 63
01210 FERNEY-VOLTAIRE Fax : (33) 4 50 40 59 37 01210 FERNEY-VOLTAIRE Cedex
France E-mail address : wma@wma.net France
Dr. Moojin Choo
President
Korean Medical Association
By e-mail
March 25th
, 2015
Letter in support of the Korean Medical Association
Dear Dr. Choo,
The practice of medicine usually requires a university study of at least five usually six years as a
medical undergraduate or four further years of medical studies after a degree as a postgraduate
student.
Education to become an independent Surgeon, Pathologist Radiologist or other speciality takes at
least four years for family medicine and about 6 years on average to be competent, credentialed
highly specialised Medical Practitioner.
This long period of education is necessary because the knowledge base of medicine is huge,
growing, is complex and treating patients brings with it significant discipline and multiple aspects
of treating human beings. This professional work can require Physicians to bare high risks, in the
front line making decisions for the patient as an advocate for the health of the population the
Physician takes on a public risk as well.
On commercial motivated advice of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business, the
Korean government now wishes to allow the same medical technology, mastered by Physicians
over many years based on science and under-pinned with an ethical code, to practitioners of
Traditional Oriental Medicine.
The high levels of quality, safety and effective and personal care Koreans enjoy today is at risk with
these suggested changes – driven more by commerce than scientific and medical reasoning. The
high levels of expertise and experience derived after over century proven and rigorous clinical and
WMA page 2
scientific method cannot translate to other disciplines without the same rigour and standards being
demanded.
This is an awkward idea and incongruous with a modern, scientific and technological
knowledgeable society demanding highest levels of care from competent, well trained highly
specialised medical people. This is also an absurd conceptual mismatch: the TOM is based on
oriental philosophical principles which are completely different from the foundation of modern
medicine emphasizing evidence-based scientific methods. The Oriental Medical Practitioners have
never had to use or indeed actually used by these technologies. The years of traditional Oriental
training does not see this technology used. Further they are neither able to find proper indications
to use this technology, (as indications for an x-ray or a CT-Scan doesn’t exist in TOM), nor they are
not educated to safely apply radiation for nor have they had any education to interpret the results of
such applications (every Physician using and working with radiation has some training).
It is very clear that this move by the Korean government is nothing else but an attempt to de-value
the health system and diminish the quality care enjoyed by Koreans today. These actions will not
only commercialize health care but debase it with a longer term expense to Koreans and
government as such short sighted reduction of standards, in the name of commercialization or
competition, will diminish the service experienced by people with increased morbidity and
mortality as proven therapies and skilled professionals are by-passed and the notion of compatibility
of the science and the TOM basis and deemed erroneously as equivalent.
The economic fate of this attempt is also very predictable: It will lead to a massive increase of use
of costly technology, many of which are wrongly or not at all indicated and by that to a massive
increase in health care spending. As a number of those technologies are potentially dangerous in
their application, injuries, suffering and damages are likely to occur. As incompetent interpretation
of results will lead to wrong conclusions, futile further diagnostics and futile therapeutic attempts
further cost and potential suffering will happen.
Should such a legal opening be coupled to financial caps, that will limit the financial resource by
physicians, it will reduce access to evidence-based health care, thus increasing the damage to the
Korean patients even further. It is also foreseeable that it will lead to an exodus of medical doctors
from Korea as there are shortages in many parts or the world and Korean physicians will be more
than welcomed.
Sincerely
Dr. Xavier Deau Dr. Mukesh Haikerwal AO
President Chairman of Council