Medical licensing examination (uigwa) and the world of the physician officers (uigwan) in Korea's Joseon Dynasty / 보건의료교육평가

ABSTRACT

Physicians for ordinary people in Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) do not need to pass national medical licensing examination. They had done their job after enough period of apprenticeship. Only physician officers were licensed as technical civil servants. These physician officers were middle class, located socially between the nobility and the commoner. They had to pass a national licensing examination to be considered for high-ranking physician officers, that is, those at the rank above the 6th level out of a total of 9 ranks, where the first rank was highest. Royal physicians also had to pass this examination before accepting responsibility for the King's healthcare. This article aims to describe the world of Physician officers during the Joseon Dynasty. Physician officers enjoyed considerable social status because they dealt with matters of life and death. Owing to the professional nature of their fields and a strong sense of group identity they came to compose a distinct social class. The physician officers' world was marked by strong group allegiances based on shared professional knowledge; the use of marriage to gain and maintain social status; and the establishment of hereditary technical posts within the medical profession that were handed down from one generation to the next. The medical licensing examination persisted until 1894 when the civil service examination agency, of which it was part, was abolished. Until that time, the testing agency, the number of candidates who were accepted, two-step test procedures, and the method of test item selection were maintained and enforced. These aspects of the test could be considered characteristic of the medical licensing examination.