스포츠 팀닥터의 의료법상의 문제

Abstract

In performing players’ ability potentially for sports activities, it is important to get management and supervision from medical staff, often called trainers or team doctors, with high medical expertise and experience besides the role of team leaders such as managers and coaches. In actual practices of the Korean sports society, however, medical staffs in sports teams are called 'team doctors' indiscriminately and repeatedly. There are no provisions for the definition and qualification requirements of team doctors and there is no sufficient research or discussion. Accordingly, unqualified team doctors conduct medical activities occasionally or commit illegal activities and even in the process of working as a team doctor by a qualified medical practitioner, there is a lot of possibilities to violate the current Medical Service Act. In this paper, I describe the definition, qualification requirements, and operation examples of sports team doctors in the United States. In addition, I extract the concept and qualification requirements of the sports team doctors from articles, rules, regulations, and contracts of the Korean sports society and professional teams in Korea. Through such a review, I try to find important points which can be referred to in determining the definition and qualification requirements of team doctors in sports teams. I also insist that it is necessary to solve various legal problems under the harmonization of distinctiveness and expertise of sports activities by introducing possible issues during the application and interpretation of the Medical Service Act.