Korea has more nurses than the OECD average, but the number of working ng fell below the average, due in part to harsh working conditions and low pay.According to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) report on the status of medical resources, the number of people with a nursing license working in the field was low here compared to the total number of licensed nurses.
Back in June, an online petition made to the Blue House called for legally removing dogs from the livestock category, drawing more than 200,000 signatures, calling for the presidential office to make a formal response.The petition called for separating dogs from other animals such as cows, pigs, chickens as part of livestock bred for eating. The request grew traction in a country where the
KAIST researchers have successfully developed a snake-like, flexible endoscopic surgical robot and used it to conduct surgery on a live pig by removing its gallbladder, the university said Thursday.The team led by Professor Kwon Dong-soo, who is also director of the Center for Future Medical Robotics at KAIST, developed the flexible endoscopic surgical robot called the K-FLEX.The K-FLEX ca
Yonsei University Health System (YUHS) said Tuesday it created a research and development advisory center called ALYND to foster cooperation in the biopharmaceutical sector.The center will work to bring together industry, hospital, and academic officials to work towards developing the biopharmaceutical industry, including cooperating in activities such as new drug development.The hospi
Korean pharmaceutical companies are jumping into the biobank business. Biobanks collect material and genetic information from the human body, including blood, tissue, cell, plasma, and protein. The materials are frozen and provided to researchers according to demand.The global biobank market is expected to reach $2.69 billion by 2022, growing at an annual rate of 7.8 percent from $1.85 bil
New research is showing that the skull size of Koreans grew larger after the nation’s liberation from the Japanese colonial rule in 1945, thanks to proper nutrition and a more stable economy.Koreans born in the 1970s has cranial cavity 90 milliliters larger than those born in the 1930s on average, the research said. This shows Korea experienced drastic historical shifts from the decades-lo
More Korean pharmaceutical firms are actively entering the functional foods market to meet increased demand for these products foods from those in their 20s and 30s. Functional foods refer to foods that have a potentially positive effect on health beyond basic nutrition.Worsening health from the scorching heat and fine dust pollution also played a role in increased demand.According to the
The number of cases for additional indications of ulcerative colitis after the domestic market launch of Janssen Korea’s Simponi, an autoimmune disease drug, has been adjusted to 120. Janssen Korea should accordingly conduct an additional investigation for a year and a half to check for adverse reactions such as severe infections. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety released online on Thu
Pfizer Vitals, which claimed to stand for quality generics, has suffered a two-fold loss, failing to meet market performance expectations, and getting its carcinogen containing hypertension drug suspended.Pfizer launched its generics division Pfizer Vitals in 2012. It relied on LG Chem, formerly known as LG Life Science, to manufacture its generics and sold the medication directly.Howe
Chung-Ang University Hospital stood out in the first “Patient Evaluation of Medical Service Experience” survey. The so-called big-five hospitals scored rather low, and the Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH), in particular, ranked the lowest in most sections. The results of the patient experience evaluation released by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Health Insurance Review
New research is showing that hip fracture surgeries without blood transfusions have no difference in the mortality rate or complications as surgeries with blood transfusion.More and more patients, especially seniors, are getting hip fracture surgery. Allogenic blood transfusion (ABT) is commonly required for the procedure in about 40 to 65 percent of elderly patients getting a hip fracture
A government report showed 1,191 people were newly diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) last year, indicating eight fewer diagnoses than 2016.The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the data in its 2017 report Thursday.HIV is a virus that attacks the immune system by destroying a white blood cell
Pet health is becoming increasingly crucial in Korea with a local insurance institution aiming to establish the nation’s first “pet insurance.”The rise in animal care institutions and products has been attributed to the rising number of pet owners in a country where it was not uncommon to eat boshintang, or dog soup, a couple of years prior.With rising income, changing times, and shift
The global genomics market is expected to reach $23.8 billion by 2022, growing 10 percent annually from $14.7 billion in 2017. Genomics is a rapidly growing field, with the market creating an enormous amount of data annually.Estimates show 2.4 exabytes are created each year. To put things into perspective, social media platforms Twitter generates 1.17 petabytes annually while Youtube creates 1
A cardiology team led by Professor Yu Cheol-woong from Korea University Hospital (KUH) has completed Korea’s first transcatheter mitral valve implantation (TMVI) in a patient with postoperative mitral stenosis complications without resorting to a surgical process. Mitral stenosis is a disease in which the mitral valve of the heart does not open well and narrows.“The pr
Gangnam Severance Hospital said it completed the first surgery in the “platform clinic” it built in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on a woman with thyroid cancer.Gangnam Severance Hospital's Professor Kim Bup-woo conducted the surgery on a 29-year old woman on July 19.The patient who is working to become a gynecologist felt an abnormality in her thyroid gland five years ago and had a biopsy at th
ViiV Healthcare, the HIV specialty firm of GlaxoSmithKline, presented 100-week results from its phase 3 clinical trials on a 2-drug regimen called Juluca (dolutegravir and rilpivirine) at the 22nd International AIDS Conference held in Amsterdam in July.SWORD 1 and SWORD 2 studies proved the efficacy and safety of the 2-drug regimen comprised of dolutegravir, known as Tivicay and developed
Takeda Pharmaceutical Korea said Tuesday it got approval for its antihypertensive drug Edarbyclor (azilsartan medoxomil/chlorthalidone), with its monotherapy Edarbi (azilsartan medoxomil) proving efficacy over valsartan-containing hypertension drugs in clinical trials. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety’s approval was based on a randomized, double-blind, phase 3 study on 1,071 stage-2 hy
The Ministry of Health and Welfare recently published comprehensive guidelines to tackle rising obesity in the country with plans to start reimbursing surgery to treat the morbidly obese as early as November.Education and counseling related to obesity will also get insurance coverage starting in 2020.The socioeconomic costs of obesity have been rising around the world with the World He
Cardiologists at Severance Cardiovascular Hospital have completed two groundbreaking operations with Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) transplants on an infant and a teenager.LVAD is a pump used for patients who have reached end-stage heart failures. The battery-operated, mechanical pump - which helps the left ventricle pump blood to the rest of the body – is surgically implanted into the