The World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus complimented the K-pop group BTS for showing positive notes and hope for overcoming the Covid-19.The WHO chief also congratulated the boy band on naming as the TIME magazine’s “Entertainer of the Year 2020.”Ghebreyesus said, “
I recently received a request from several embassies, including the British, Norwegian, and Danish Embassy, to introduce Korea’s digital healthcare industry.The foreign embassies’ interest in Korea’s digital healthcare must have grown, particularly after the nation’s successful response to Covid-19
The writer is professor at the Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.The clash between the government and the medical community over the issue of increasing doctors does not seem to be resolved at any time soon.I graduated from a medical school and obtained a medical license but I am not a clinician. This is why I decided t
The writer is the executive editor of The Korea Doctors’ Weekly, the sister paper of Korea Biomedical Review.—Ed. The recent series of strikes by physicians are different from those two decades ago in many ways. First, the complexity of the issue is different. In 2000, the core issue was separating the drug prescribing from drug dispensing but setting details were complicated. Specifi
Recently, a doctor who left Korea and headed to the United States for a long time ago expressed his frustration over the Korean government's medical policy and sent a column to the Korea Biomedical Review. Professor Kang Hyun-seok, the author of the article, graduated from Yonsei University Medical College. He completed an internal medicine residency at a hospital affiliated with Columbia Universi
Covid-19 has provided an unprecedented growth opportunity for digital healthcare developers.While many industries suffered downturns extensively from the prolonged pandemic, digital healthcare’s role instead expanded in the Covid-19 crisis. People’s concerns for health grew, but they had less access to the conventional healthcare system or health management services. Naturally, digital healthc
The writer is the executive editor of The Korea Doctors Weekly, the sister paper of Korea Biomedical Review.—Ed. About four years ago, I wrote two columns to assert that the government should allow car insurance subscribers to exclude Oriental medicine treatment from insurance coverage, and adopt a similar system for the national health insurance program. To put it simply, I suggest
More than five months have passed since Korea began battling against the Covid-19 pandemic after confirming its first patient on Jan. 20.The new coronavirus’ outbreak has forced peoples to adjust to the new normal -- a term that implies that something previously abnormal has become commonplace – it also brought about various changes in the journalistic community.As a reporter specializ
The 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting completed its first online meeting last week.Despite its abrupt switch to an online format due to the global Covid-19 outbreak, the conference seems to have responded quite well to the change, publishing many noteworthy pieces of research.However, quite a few Korean biopharmaceutical companies said that the conference
The unprecedented global spread of the new coronavirus has put global health in great danger and caused rapid changes in the existing healthcare system and industry in almost all over the world. Humanity is waging war against the Covid-19 virus. In this wartime, people experience changes that could not have been imagined in normal times and even break conventional taboos. These changes could bring
Every year around this time, when health ministers from around the world gather for the World Health Assembly, they almost always commemorate the late Lee Jong-wook, former director-general of the World Health Organization.Even before he was elected to the office, Lee demonstrated his expertise and leadership to be called the “Czar of Vaccine” and “Man of Action” because he raised funds for th
As part of efforts to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, many countries have closed their schools. In Korea, the Ministry of Education had initially postponed the start of the new school year until March 23. Despite the declining number of new COVID-19 cases, the government has just ex-extended it to April 6.It is challenging to make guidance on reopening
While the world was going all out to contain the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Korean medical community was divided by an untimely controversy over the government’s temporary approval for telemedicine.The Ministry of Health and Welfare recently announced that it would allow physicians to give over-the-phone medical consultation and prescriptions temporarily until the COVID-19 outbre
I had predicted that about 10,000 people would be diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) around March 10, based on a regression calculation estimated from last week's trend provided by the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Since March 5, however, the number of confirmed patients began to slow down slightly, and as of March 8, the slowdown became clearer. If the new
The news that caught the attention of Korean cancer patients in recent months was not about new anticancer drug development but about “animal anthelmintics.” A YouTube video of a U.S. patient diagnosed with small cell lung cancer claimed he had been cured by fenbendazole (animal anthelmintic) while attending a clinical trial with other anticancer drugs at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. When fenben
“Artificial intelligence (AI) has been developed that outperform doctors.” Such kind of headline is commonly seen in news reports these days. If an AI system that outperforms physicians is out in the market, why don’t hospitals immediately use it inpatient care? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved more than 30 AI-using medical devices as of 2019. In Korea, the Ministry of Food a
On Feb. 21, 2003, a doctor from Guangzhou, China, visited Hong Kong to attend a wedding of a relative. After having flu-like symptoms for a few days, the doctor suddenly got worse at a hotel in Hong Kong. He would have had a severe cough in the hallway or the elevator, as well as in room 911 on the ninth floor of the hotel that he stayed with his wife.Five days later, on Feb. 26, a busines
On Jan. 31, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of novel coronavirus 2019 (2019-nCoV) a public health emergency over the world but did not restrict international transportation of humans and trade. However, many countries began to limit entrants from China after the declaration.In Korea, a total of 16 patients of pneumonia or respiratory infection by 2019-nCoV had bee
Have you ever put on Level-D protective clothing?Various newspapers and other textbooks plainly describe wearing Level-D protective clothing against respiratory viruses. In practice, however, this is not a simple task. It takes at least five minutes to put it on. If you try to see the patient after wearing it, it is very difficult to communicate. With the N95 respirator, a basic conversati
Korea Biomedical Review publishes the contribution from Peter Soelkner, managing director of Vetter Pharma International GmbH. —Ed. When road conditions change, it is important to check your roadmap if you want to successfully reach your destination. Due to a rapidly changing global healthcare landscape, various developments are affecting the way in which companies are navigating their jou