Amid the medical community’s escalating attacks on the Supreme Court’s permission for Oriental doctors to use ultrasonic diagnostic devices, an Oriental doctors’ group called for them to “stop disparaging and distorting the top court’s ruling.”
The Association of Korean Medicine (AMK) said Wednesday that the highest court has just decided whether it is legal for Oriental doctors to use ultrasonic diagnosis devices, not absolving those who misdiagnose.
The group then presented the misdiagnosis examples of doctors using ultrasonic devices as the example of “double standards.”
“The Supreme Court’s ruling has no additional verdicts or decisions except that it is legal for Oriental doctors to use ultrasonic diagnosis devices,” the association said in a press release. “However, the medical community is misleading people as if the top court had also absolved Oriental doctors’ misdiagnosis.”
The association pointed out that the Supreme Court’s ruling said that it could not find statistically significant grounds to regard only Oriental doctors as negative concerning the expertise and misdiagnosing possibility of these devices except for radiologists and that regarding Oriental doctors’ use of such devices as unlicensed medical practices is an interpretation without reasonable grounds.
Citing the examples of medical disputes caused by doctors’ misdiagnosis regarding ultrasonic devices, the association described it as a typical case of “nae-ro-nam-bul,” a Korean phrase meaning that if I love someone, it is a romance, but if others do, it is an affair.
“A doctor described diagnosed breast bruising as inflammation, but nine months later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. In another case, bladder cancer was misdiagnosed as bladder inflammation, and early treatment opportunities were lost,” it said. “Also, other doctors misdiagnosed multiple endometriosis as ovarian inflammation or misdiagnosed acute myocardial infarction, which complained of chest pain, as reflux esophagitis.”
The association went on to say, “In this situation, they shouldn't blame the Oriental doctors but apologize to the public and make a declaration of conscience to refrain from using ultrasound diagnostic devices. The products of modern technological development are not exclusive to the medical community. If it can be used for the benefit of mankind, no one should be restricted from its use."
It added that had Hippocrates or Hur Jun (famous Korean doctor of the Joseon Kingdom) been resurrected, they would make the most of scientific and technological fruits to diagnose and treat patients.
“We Oriental doctors are fully ready to use modern diagnosis devices to protect the people’s lives and enhance public health,” it said.