한국의 대학병원에서 의료진들이 겪는 윤리적 문제 현황 및 임상윤리자문서비스의 필요성 조사*

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature and number of ethical conflicts faced by physicians and nurses working at university hospitals in South Korea and also to assess the need for clinical ethics consultation services. Data collection was conducted from August 6 to 24, 2015 at three university hospitals in metropolitan areas; a total of 316 physicians and nurses participated in the study. The results showed that 85.1% of physicians and 76.6% of nurses answered that they had experienced ethical problems more than once a year during the course of their career, and about one third of respondents experienced such conflicts at least once every three months. For physicians, ethical dilemmas arose most often in the context of end-of-life care, mainly in terminating life-sustaining treatment (65.7%) and notifying patients of the end of medical treatment (63.6%). Ethical dilemmas experienced by nurses related primarily to difficult care decisions other than life-sustaining treatment (73.9%), impaired decision-making in patients (66.7%), and dealing with surrogate decision-makers (66.7%). When faced with ethical dilemmas, healthcare professionals usually made decisions informally by themselves or in consultation with close colleagues. More than 97% of respondents answered that they needed a clinical ethics consultation service. Future research should focus on how the ethics consulting services described in the Life-sustaining Treatment Decision-making Act of 2018 can be developed into an effective model for solving ethical problems that arise in medical practice.