[Column] Who will practice critical care in a society that sees doctors a...

Park Jong-hoon, a professor of the Department of Orthopedics at Korea University Anam Hospital

Even now, in my 60s, I still lose sleep for days before performing a difficult surgery. It does not matter that I have successfully performed the procedure many times before. I wake up in the middle of the night and revisit surgical textbooks.

On the mornings of especially challenging operations, I never shave. Superstitious as it sounds, I worry it may bring bad luck. People may laugh at this and ask why I feel that way.

Profesor Park Jong-hoon

Is it because I fear being sued if something goes wrong? Certainly, the possibility of a medical lawsuit crosses my mind. But that is not the whole story. When a patient suffers, doctors suffer deeply as well. What kind of doctor could treat patients carelessly and still sleep peacefully afterward? Only a butcher could.

Many years ago, the medical community fiercely resisted the government’s attempt to introduce a bundled payment system. During a televised debate, a senior medical figure argued against the policy by saying, “If the bundled payment system is implemented, doctors may choose cheaper materials, and ultimately the quality of healthcare will decline.”

At first glance, that argument seemed plausible. At the time, concerns over the deteriorating quality of care were the central point of opposition from doctors.

But then a government representative responded, “I do not believe doctors would use cheaper materials on their own patients simply because prices are fixed.”

Hearing that, I felt ashamed as I watched the debate on television. Doctors themselves had cast doubt on their own professional ethics. Of course, some physicians may choose less expensive materials as long as they believe patient care will not be compromised. But I can confidently say that most doctors would never sacrifice the quality of treatment simply to save money.

Recently, during a public debate over standards for gross negligence in essential medical care, a lawyer made the following argument in a media interview.

Referring to a case in which a pediatric resident was fined 20 million won ($13,440) after a six-month-old infant died during a bone marrow extraction because the needle was inserted too deeply, the lawyer argued that if the proposed revision to the Medical Dispute Mediation Act is enacted, inexperienced doctors who recklessly treat patients and cause accidents would no longer be punishable for gross negligence. According to the lawyer, the amendment would grant doctors excessive legal privilege.

At this point, it seems unavoidable to conclude that society views doctors as morally bankrupt butchers. What doctor would casually experiment on an infant simply because the legal risks were reduced? Doctors constantly worry about their patients. We lose sleep over them. Even without the law standing over us with a whip, we are already our own harshest critics, always cautious and vigilant. Yet now, society says even that cannot be trusted.

All medical care depends on trust between doctor and patient, but critical and high-risk care depends on it absolutely. If the public insists that doctors cannot be trusted and therefore must be tightly controlled and harshly punished by law, the outcome is obvious. No one will choose to do that work anymore. As someone once said, if you do nothing, nothing can go wrong.

Korea is being ruined by its own “clever” people.

Park Jong-hoon