Conduct Of Korean Doctors Difficult. To Change

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22729, 30 August 1948, Page 5

Conduct Of Korean Doctors Difficult. To Change

(From William E. Parrott, A.A.P.Reuter Correspondent.) (By Airmail) SEOUL, United States Military Government advisers are waging a hard battle with discouraging results in attempting to guide Korean medical practice from the patii of commercialism and quackery to the higher levels of ethical Western service. They are trying to persuade Korean, doctors that medicine is not just another business enterprise with money as the dominating factor, but that it is inspired by a responsibility and a desire to assist the sick and the injured. Ever since the occupation of South Korea began nearly three years ago the advisers have preached this gospel but they have been fighting an entrenched tradition, fostered through 40 years of Japanese occupation, that tijere is no sentiment even in the business of saving lives.

The small team of advisers, all of whom are medical men, admit there are some Koreans who do not earn, this condemnation but say that their numbers are regrettably small. Reduction of Serious Diseases Chief task of the advisers has 'been to supervise the main lines of health administration, and in this respect they have been remarkably successful. They have, for instance, brought about a heavy reduction in the incidence of such epidemic diseases as cholera, smallpox, typhus and typhoid. ' This supervision was badly needed, for Japanese occupied all the important posts under the former regime and the Koreans had no administrative experience. But while sound advice, backed by arbitrary regulation, has won in the administrative field, many Korean doctors seem to have remained impervious to change in their professional conduct. The American advisers have been distressed at the callous indifference of the average Korean doctor to his patient, at his failure to appreciate elementary hygiene, and at his deliberate policy of accessing a patient’s wealth and squeezing him accordingly. They say the average Korean doctor will give a patient what he wants —at a price. If the patient believes he needs an expensive treatment the doctor will give it despite the fact that a cheaper prescription would suffice. The Koreans are perfectly at ease in playing upon public veneration for such drugs as penicillin by giving a dosage within the patient's financial needs and not what the case demands. One of the worst practices which the advisers say they have had to combat is black marketing In penicillin and other scarce drugs. Although they have been able to secure little proof they believe that some doctors ara heavily involved in this racket. Better Treatment for Patients The advisers have been trying to impress upon the Koreans that medicine is a profession of urgency, that patients must often be treated immediately, but to date they say their pleading has won little response. Assisted by American nurses, the advisers have been able to achieve remarkable successes in hospitals, particularly in hygiene, as a result of personal control, but they say that once the control is removed, standards often slump badly. While the constant efforts of the American may eventually leave some imprint on Korean medical practice. the medical schools as the chief points of potential influence are entire* ly under Korean control. In accordance with Japanese traditions the schools still teach excellent medical theory, although without the benefit of former able Japanese professors, but again in the Japanese tradition, the teachers lack the background and the impulse to interpret medical practice as a service to humanity and not merely as a money-making racket. i The American advisers fear that its will be many years before the Koreanl medical profession achieves the ethiea® and other standards that are demand* m the .West, .