The share of doctors indicted and criminally punished for professional negligence resulting in death or injury in Korea is higher than in other countries, such as Japan, Germany, and the U.K.

Every year, 762 doctors are charged with professional negligence resulting in death or injury in Korea, according to a report, “Criminalization of medical practices and its policy implications,” released by the Research Institute for Healthcare Policy under the Korean Medical Association on Wednesday.

“That means a daily average of two doctors was indicted for professional negligence resulting in death or injury,” the report said.

Between 2011 and 2018, 8,255 professionals were charged with professional negligence resulting in death or injury. Among them, 6,095 were medical doctors, accounting for 73.8 percent of the total.

In Korea, the number of cases in which prosecutors charged doctors with professional negligence resulting in death or injury and consequently punishing doctors criminally was far larger than in Japan and the U.K.

From 2013 to 2018, the number of prosecutors indicting doctors for professional negligence was 754.8 on average. The figure was 14.7 times higher than Japan’s 51.5 and 26.6 times larger than Germany’s 28.4. In the U.K., only 1.3 doctors were charged with professional negligence on average. Based on the number of doctors on active duty, 0.5 percent of Korean doctors were charged with professional negligence, far higher than Japan’s 0.01 percent.

The U.K. has no statistical data on professional negligence resulting in death or injury due to differences in the medical system and judicial procedures. However, 24 doctors were reported to the police on the annual average for suspected professional negligence resulting in death, accounting for 0.01 percent of active doctors.

In Germany, the number of forensic test reports submitted to prosecutors due to unnatural death and suspected injury related to medical practices was an average of 444 per year from 1990 to 2000. Among them, the number of cases where medical malpractice was acknowledged was 28.4 per year, with only 0.008 percent of doctors on active duty.

The share of doctors punished for professional negligence resulting in death or injury was also sharply higher in Korea. From 2010 to 2020, 354 medical professionals (doctors, dentists, and oriental doctors) stood trial at lower courts for suspected professional negligence, and 239, 67.5 percent, were found guilty. Again, fines were most common, with 71 percent, followed by confinement (20 percent) and imprisonment (5 percent).

In contrast, among 202 Japanese doctors who stood in criminal trials for professional negligence from 1999 to 2016, only 32, or 15.8 percent, were convicted.

In the U.K., there have been very few cases of going to criminal trials. For example, from 2013 to 2018, only seven doctors underwent criminal trials, and four were found guilty.

The medical specialties most frequently subject to criminal trials were orthopedics, plastic surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, surgery, and internal medicine in Korea. However, the comparable order in Japan was surgery, internal medicine, cardiovascular medicine, gastroenterology, and cardiovascular surgery. It was in the order of orthopedics, emergency medicine, obstetrics, gynecology, and general surgery in England. In the U.S., emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, family medicine, general surgery, and orthopedics were most frequently subject to criminal trials.

Aside from strengthening the specialized capabilities of police offers who investigate medical malpractices and improving the judicial procedural system, the researchers called for amending the “Medical Dispute Mediation to introduce necessary adjustment prepositional principle and dropping the cases without indictment if an agreement or mediation is established.

“The excessive criminalization of medical malpractices seems to have affected the increasing avoidance of majoring in the essential medical areas,” said Woo Bong-shik, director of the research institute. “We wanted to provide correct information on the Korean reality of excessive criminalization of medical professionals for the government, academia, and the news media, and prevent the collapse of the essential healthcare to create a stable environment in which doctors can focus on protecting the public’s lives and promoting the public health.”