• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.3-33
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• 2020

Telemedicine can be defined as "medical activities performed remotely by medical personnel using information and communication technology." So far, many scholars in Korea have understood that only telemedicine between medical personnel is allowed and telemedicine between medical personnel and patients is prohibited based on Article 34 of Medical Service Act. However, Article 34 is only a restriction on the performing place of medical profession, not a prohibition on telemedicine itself. And, there are no regulations prohibiting telemedicine under the korean medical law. So, it is difficult to say that telemedicine is generally prohibited under the korean medical law, apart from the health insurance medical treatment benefit standards. However, there is controversy in interpretation regarding the meaning of "direct diagnosis" in Articles 17 and 17-2 of Medical Service Act. The Constitutional Court of Korea interpreted this as "face-to-face diagnosis", while the Supreme Court of Korea interpreted it as "self diagnosis". In light of the dictionary meaning of 'direct' and the interpretation of related medical law regulations, I think the Supreme Court's interpretation is valid. Although "direct diagnosis" does not mean "face-to-face diagnosis", the concept of "diagnosis" implies "principle of face-to-face diagnosis". In addition, "non-face-to-face diagnosis" are only allowed to supplement "face-to-face diagnosis", so the problems caused by "non-face-to-face diagnosis" can be fully overcome. In the end, the limit of telemedicine is how faithful the diagnosis was.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.3-33
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• 2022

In relation to telemedicine in Korea's medical law, there are Articles 17, 17-2, and 34 of the Medical Act. Since 'direct examination' in Articles 17 and 17-2 of the Medical Act can be interpreted as 'self-examination' rather than 'face-to-face examination', it is difficult to see the above regulation as a regulation prohibiting telemedicine. Prohibiting telemedicine only with the concept of medical examination or the 'principle of face-to-face treatment' is against the principle of "nulla poena sine lege"(the principle of legality). However, in order to qualify as 'examination', it must be faithful enough to replace face-to-face examination, so issuing a medical certificate or prescription after a poor examination over the phone is considered a violation of the Medical Act. In that respect, the above regulation can be said to be a regulation that indirectly limits telemedicine. On the other hand, most lawyers interpret that telemedicine between medical personnel and patients is completely prohibited based on Article 34, and the Supreme Court recently ruled that such telemedicine is not permitted even if there is a patient's request. However, this interpretation is not only far from the legislative intention at the time when telemedicine regulations were introduced into the Medical Act of 2002, but also does not match the needs of reality or the legislative trend of foreign countries. The reason is that telemedicine regulations are erroneously legislated. The premise of the legislation is wrong, and there are considerable problems in the form and content of the legislation. As a result, contrary to the original legislative intent, telemedicine was completely banned. In foreign countries, it is difficult to find cases where telemedicine is completely banned and criminal punishment is imposed for it. In order to fundamentally solve the problem of telemedicine, Article 34 of the Medical Act needs to be deleted.

• Journal of Oral Medicine and Pain
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.433-446
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to investigate the sociopsychological factors which might influence the course of the temporomandibular disorders and to develop models for prediction of treatment outcome related to pain, dysfunction and sound. For this study, 268 patients with temporomandibular disorders were selected from the patients presented to department of Oral Medicine, Wonkwang university dental hospital. Chief complaints of these subjects were largely grouped into three categories such as pain, dysfunction and sound, and 10 cm visual analogue scale(VAS) was used to record the state of the three complaints every visit and Treatment Index(VAS TI) was calculated from VAS. All the forty-two items obtained from clinical examination or questionnaire were statistically processed with $SPSS^{(R)}$ windows. The results of this study were as follows: 1. The items showed a difference between male and female subjects were maximum mouth opening, palpation score, jaw jerk during mandibular movement, and sleep disturbance. Among questionnaires such as SRRS, HAD scale and PSQI, the HAD scales showed the most highly significant correlation with the each scale item of the SCL-90R. 2. Among the groups classified by VAS TI, the group with the lowest VAS TI showed the highest VAS score in the start of treatment but showed the lowest score in the end of treatment, without respect to the type of chief complaint. From these results, it is assumed that the active treatment duration for the subjects with lower VAS score in the first visit would be longer than the subjects with higher score with the somewhat poor treatment outcome. 3. With regard to all the three complaints, the items showing significant effect in the model for prediction of treatment outcome were from questionnaire, except one item, maximum mouth opening, which suggest that the sociopsychological factors would be strongly related to development and progress of the symptoms.