• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.75 no.5
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• pp.199-204
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• 2013

Background: The number of patients with pulmonary disease caused by nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) has been increasing worldwide. The aim of this study was to evaluate long-term trends in the NTM recovery rate from respiratory specimens over a 10-year period in a tertiary referral hospital in South Korea. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the records of mycobacterial cultures of respiratory specimens at Samsung Medical Center from January 2001 to December 2011. Results: During the study period, 32,841 respiratory specimens from 10,563 patients were found to be culture-positive for mycobacteria. These included 12,619 (38%) Mycobacterium tuberculosis and 20,222 (62%) NTM isolates. The proportion of NTM among all positive mycobacterial cultures increased from 43% (548/1,283) in 2001 to 70% (3,341/4,800) in 2011 (p<0.001, test for trend). The recovery rate of NTM isolates from acid-fast bacilli smear-positive specimens increased from 9% (38/417) in 2001 to 64% (1,284/1,997) in 2011 (p<0.001, test for trend). The proportion of positive liquid cultures was higher for NTM than for M. tuberculosis (p<0.001). The most frequently isolated NTM were Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare complex (53%) and Mycobacterium abscessus-massiliense complex (25%). Conclusion: The recovery rate of NTM from respiratory specimens in South Korea has increased steadily.

• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.617-637
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• 2011

This study employs qualitative approaches to examining geographical characteristics and patients' determinants of online referrals in terms of regionalization. In this light, I conducted interviews with 20 patients receiving online referrals in Choongbook, Korea, and investigated their behaviors regarding these referrals between July and August 2009. I found that many patients who suffered from various levels of illness preferred tertiary care centers outside of Choongbook and did not enjoy their experience with the local medical institutions as the online referral service sites. This result might be because patients choose online referrals for psychological considerations such as quality and level of health care services, personal stakes in online referral service sites, acceptability and credibility of good tertiary care centers, and easy access to and use of medical institutions. Meanwhile, immediate benefits with regard to the technological value of online referrals, such as convenience, utility, and original purpose associated with regionalization, did not influence patients' decision-making. Therefore, the social and public networks affiliated with online referrals plus the effect of Korean medical laws play hostage to private decisions made by citizens, who prefer high-level medical institutions. Accordingly, the technological contribution of online referrals does not halt the outflow of patients from local, tertiary care centers. Especially, the existing health care system and patients' behaviors are deeply related to referrals in the online system. To protect regionalization, the improvement of health care services from the present state of affairs is required.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.115-118
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• 2013

An 8-year-old spayed female domestic shorthair cat was presented with a chief complaint of chronic nasal discharge and dyspnea. Physical examination revealed pyohemorrhagic nasal discharge, inspiratory dyspnea and stertor, and an enlarged right mandibular lymph node. Abnormalities of blood works and serum chemistry included mildly increased hematocrit, and globulin concentration. Serologic tests for FeLV and FIV, and a panel of polymerase chain reaction tests for Chlamydophila felis, Feline Calicivirus, Herpesvirus, Bordetella, Mycoplasma felis, and H1N1 influenza was all negative. Only radiographic finding showed increasing soft tissue density in the right nasal cavity and computed tomography disclosed soft tissue/fluid opacification in the right nasal cavity, paranasal sinus, and pharyinx along with slight deviation to the right of the osseous nasal septum. Focal lysis of ventral nasal septum was also suspected in CT scan. Cytological evaluation of fine needle aspirate smears of the enlarged mandibular lymph nodes revealed numerous fungal yeasts having variably thick capsule both extracellularly and intracellularly with low numbers of macrophages. Some yeasts showed narrow based budding, which was a consistent finding with Cryptococcus organisms. Serum protein electrophoresis was a polyclonal consistent with chronic infection and serum was submitted for a fungal serology panel test. In serologic tests Cryptococcus antigen titer was 1 : 32,768. In vitro culture was unsuccessful. Treatment was initiated with administration of fluconazole, clindamycin, and tocopherol. Clinical signs resolved within 3 days after the initial treatment. The cat was discharged and scheduled for periodic evaluation and continued therapy, but was lost to follow-up thereafter.

• 재활복지
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.1-26
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• 2013

As the social development progress, social welfare policy for people with disabilities also advance to meet rights of people with disabilities. The personal assistance service(PAS) is the primary service system for persons with disabilities based on guaranteeing the self-determination. The purpose of this study was to compare the personal assistance service system between Japan and Korea to propose improvement plan for Korean system. The comparison of two countries was based on current situation analysis of PAS. The analysis on eligibility criteria, information referral, amount and type of services and service provider, appealing process and service fee deductible etc. The result showed that PAS in Korea is served according to administration convenience than personal need based. Korean PAS policies are limited to particular service amount and type of needed services to satisfy personal PAS need. Whereas, Japan PAS system is served on the philosophy of independent living paradigm and therefore, PAS is provided on personal service needs. The service emphasis is on self-determination and rights on service selection for persons with disabilities. The recommendation for improvement of PAS in Korea are as followed. First, PAS should served under independent living paradigm. Paradigm based service is important because it effects the main theme of PAS; the self determination and rights of service selection. Second, reconstruction of PAS system is needed. As it showed on analysis, eligibility criteria, information referral, amount and type of services and service provider, appealing process and service fee deductible need to be supplemented. Last, to better serve PAS, case management method should be apply. Case management would contribute to settlement of PAS system in Korea. Thru case management, participation opportunities of people with disabilities must be provided during the selection of service quantity and type of PAS.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.359-371
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• 2018

The aim of this study was to investigate experience and education needs on medication and emergency situations for young children of child caregivers. The data from 190 caregivers were collected using open-ended questionnaires composed of four items and analysed by content analysis. The categories derived for each theme were as follows: experience of medication of six categories(no referral for medication, young children refused medication, inaccurate referral, a variety of medication, sick children but not having medication), education need of four categories(for child caregivers, for parents, for children, guideline required), experience of emergency situation of six categories(skin damage or bleeding, decreased consciousness due to seizures, high fever persisted, asphyxiation due to foreign body, dislocation or fracture, emergency not knowing how to cope), education need of emergency situation of five categories(contents, methods, cycle, necessity, institutionalization). It is required to improve more practically the education contents and methods related to medication and emergency situation of child caregivers.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.82 no.4
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• pp.348-356
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• 2019

Background: Recently, the number of lung transplants in South Korea has increased. However, the long-term outcome data is limited. In this study, we aimed to investigate the long-term outcomes of adult lung transplantation recipients. Methods: Among the patients that underwent lung transplantation at a tertiary referral center in South Korea between 2008 and 2017, adults patient who underwent deceased-donor lung transplantation with available follow-up data were enrolled. Their medical records were retrospectively reviewed. Results: Through eligibility screening, we identified 60 adult patients that underwent lung (n=51) or heart-lung transplantation (n=9) during the observation period. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (46.7%, 28/60) was the most frequent cause of lung transplantation. For all the 60 patients, the median follow-up duration for post-transplantation was 2.6 years (range, 0.01-7.6). During the post-transplantation follow-up period, 19 patients (31.7%) died at a median duration of 194 days. The survival rates were 75.5%, 67.6%, and 61.8% at 1 year, 3 years, and 5 years, respectively. Out of the 60 patients, 8 (13.3%) were diagnosed with chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD), after a mean duration of $3.3{\pm}2.8years$ post-transplantation. The CLAD development rate was 0%, 17.7%, and 25.8% at 1 year, 3 years, and 5 years, respectively. The most common newly developed post-transplantation comorbidity was the chronic kidney disease (CKD; 54.0%), followed by diabetes mellitus (25.9%). Conclusion: Among the adult lung transplantation recipients at a South Korea tertiary referral center, the long-term survival rates were favorable. The proportion of patients who developed CLAD was not substantial. CKD was the most common post-transplantation comorbidity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.79 no.5
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• pp.247-253
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to summarize the results of a survey for physicians with specialties other than radiology about imaging studies of patients referred from other institutions. The survey was promoted through individual contacts or social network service and physicians who voluntarily responded to the survey were the subjects of the study. The questionnaire consisted of 11 questions about basic information and referrals about medical imaging. A total of 160 physicians from 30 specialties participated in the survey and 95.6% of the respondents worked in tertiary care center or general hospital. Patients were frequently referred with outside medical images. The most frequently referred imaging modalities were computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. However, radiological reports from outside institutions were rarely referred. Most physicians thought that reinterpretation for outside imaging is necessary to acquire a secondary opinion. In conclusion, considering that outside radiological reports are frequently missing and there are high demands on reinterpretation for outside imaging, guidelines for referral of radiological reports with medical imaging, basic elements of radiological reports, and reinterpretation need to be developed.

• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.117-143
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• 2010

Along with the development of digital technologies, the information obtained during the medical procedures was working as a source of valuable assets. Especially, the secondary use of personal health information gives the ordeal to privacy protection problems. In korea, the usage of personal medical information is basically regulated by the several laws in view of general and administrative Act like Medicine Act, Public institutions' personal information protection Act, Information-Network Act etc. There is no specific health information protection Act. Health information exchange program for the blood donor referral related with teratogenic drugs and contagious disease and medical treatment reporting system for income tax convenience are the two examples of recently occurred secondary use of health information in Korea. Basically the secondary use of protected health information is depend on the risk-benefit analysis. But to accomplish the minimal invasion to privacy, we need to consider collection limitation principle first. If the expected results were attained with alternative method which is less privacy invasive, we could consider the present method is unconstitutional due to the violation of proportionality rule.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1075-1078
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• 2002

Objective: The management for the stroke should ,given as soon as possible to be effect. But Patients with stroke symptoms commonly delay many hours before seeking medical attention. We evaluated the factors which are related to the time of hospital arrival after acute stroke. Method: Data were obtained from 317 patients admitted to our hospital within 72 hours of stroke onset. We assessed demographic variables, stoke subtype. referral routes. history of previous stroke, level of consciousness, distance from the place where stroke occurred to hospital, and the time interval between onset of stroke and arrival at the hospital. Results: Mean patient age was 65.99±9.57 years. The mean time interval between onset of stroke and hospital arrival was 17.26±18.69 hours and 128 (40.38%) patients arrived within 6 hours. The patients whoes stoke subtype was infarction, who arrived our hospital by way of other hospital, who had no suffered from previous stroke and who showed no impairement of consciousness was arrived at the hospital late(p<0.05). Conclusion: The majority of patients arrive at the hospital after prolonged delays for multiple reasons, and patients with milder symptoms, for whom treatment might be more effective, were less likely to arrive in time for therapy. Our study suggest that effective education about stroke to the patients and public would be highly necessary.

• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.473-477
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• 2013

A 7-year-old castrated male Maltese developed anemia, ascites with peritonitis, and vomiting after urethrostomy. A microbial culture test of the peritoneal fluid indicated Candida albicans. Antifungal therapy was administered with intravenous fluconazole combined with antibacterial therapy. The patient recovered completely 37 days after referral admission.