The medical community is considering conducting active monitoring of unlicensed practices to root out these illegal activities committed within medical institutions.

Specific targets of surveillance include ghost surgery by unqualified persons, prescription through identity delegation at training hospitals, and the operation of medical facilities by people other than licensed physicians by hiring medical professionals.

The Korea Medical Association (KMA) activated a special committee toward this end in May last year.

The special committee performs various roles, such as providing medical counsels concerning unlicensed medical practices by physician assistants at medical facilities, working out guidelines on the allowable scope of work by assistants in each medical practice, and reporting unauthorized medical practices at hospitals to the authorities concerned.

It will focus on removing three particular types of unlicensed medical practices –committing invasive practices such as skin and tissue incision and closure by other people than licensed physicians, independent conducting of sonograms and endoscopes by non-doctors, and prescription through ID delegation.

The committee said it would not limit the panel’s role to filing a complaint but expand it to changing the social perception that only doctors can do jobs they are supposed to do. It also aims to show to the society that the medical community is not neglecting its self-reforming duty, the committee added.

The KMA said it would keep the confidentiality principle concerning the composition and discussions of the special committee for surveillance and work out a separate set of regulations for the panel.