The Role of Guidelines on the Judgement of Medical Negligence - Referring to Debates in Japan -

의료과실판단에서의 가이드라인의 역할 -일본에서의 논의를 참고하여-

According to the development of medical technology, new medical treatments have been dramatically increased as an inevitable consequence, however, it is not easy for medical workers to learn the knowledge that is necessary for new medical treatments and their additions in the medical services. Therefore, it could not be helped increasing the guidelines for applying new medical treatments, and then, the problem would come out whether to attribute the medical negligence to the doctors who did not follow the guidelines when the patient became worse because of his non-compliance. Nevertheless, there is no document to review the problem mentioned above and also no definite precedents. Thus, the civil lawful character and obligation of guidelines on the lawsuit against the medical default have been examined in this studies. The medical negligence is defined as usual doctors violate the care obligation which is demanded for them to follow when they treat patients under the proper medical standard in those days. It is resonable to assume that the matter of guidelines is to decide the level of the care obligation, that means the care which is required of the rational doctors under same circumstances, and in general, the experts' testimonies should be needed in this case. In addition, the issue comes out whether the guidelines can be the standard of the judgement of the medical negligence. Finally, I suppose, the evaluation of the issue depends on who makes the guidelines, what materials are based on, and also depends on whether there is another guidelines in the same disease, what the purpose of guidelines is to save the medical costs or to realize the appropriate medical services, in addition, it depends on how often renew the guidelines, and how wide is the usage of guidelines.