Ethical Considerations on Physicians’ Strike in Korea

Abstract

In August 2000, Korean government implemented a policy to separate the roles of physicians and pharmacists with respect to the prescription and dispensation of medicine. In particular, the policy prohibited physicians from dispensing medicine and prohibited pharmacists from prescribing medicine. Physicians in Korea have been strongly opposed to this policy and have protested its implementation by staging two nation-wide strikes, one immediately prior to the implementation of this policy, and one immediately subsequent to its implementation. These strikes have in turn evoked a hostile response from Korean citizens, who regard the physicians as acting from purely selfish motives. Within this context a debate has been initiated on the ethics of physicians strikes. At the heart of this debate is the following question: Are physicians strikes an ethically acceptable means of protesting government policies? The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the arguments that have been given on both sides of this debate and to show that physicians strikes are justified from a social and professional point of view. In this paper, we consider physicians strikes from the point of view of social ethics, professional ethics, and the four principles governing biomedical ethics. We argue that while such strikes can not be justified by the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, or patients autonomy, physicians do have social and professional responsibilities to protest government policies that are harmful to society and that physicians, strikes that are carried out with this purpose can be justified by the principle of justice. Since this is the ultimate purpose of the strikes recently carried out by the physicians in Korea, we argue that these strikes are justified from a social and professional point of view. Although the strike is justified according our conditions, physicians should not give up patients lives. During the strikes, physicians never stop providing care in the emergency room, ICU(intensive care unit) and to obstetric patients, and they tried not to delay surgeries of critical cancer patients.