A Survey of Physicians' Opinions on Basic Principles of Medical Specialty System Reform / 한국의학교육

ABSTRACT

The medical specialty system of Korea, as those of many developed countries, is faced with challenges of efficiency and quality as more and more physicians are involved in. For improvement and reform of the system, various proposals have appeared without any definitive conclusion since late 1980s. Initiated by the health reform proposal of the Korean government, however, medical specialty system has been focused again as a target for reform. For this reform to be promoted, as in other health policies, most related professions have to be included into a supportive group. Before proceeding to policy issues in details, therefore, it seems necessary that opinions of physicians on some issues should be analyzed. For this purpose, a survey was conducted with randomly sampled members of the Korean Medical Association (KMA), for a month in 1994. Structured questionnaire were mailed to sampled physicians and answers were returned. The total number of respondents was 614 among 2,000 subjects. To summarize responses, major findings were as follows; 1) The number of specialty would be increased and introduction of sub-specialty system would be inevitable. 2) In stead of the government, voluntary organizations such as KMA or academic societies should be in charge of operation of medical specialty system. 3) The existing system of rotating internship program has to be maintained. 4) Over-production of specialists have to be repressed with expansion of training programs for primary care physicians. For designing of new system, above mentioned opinions should be seriously considered as a basis of development of sound medical specialty system in Korea.