수직적 의료분업과 형사책임의 제한

Abstract

The rapid development of medicine and medical devices has led to the specialization of medical care, and as a result, it has become routine for medical professionals of various parts to cooperate for effective diagnosis and treatment. This cooperation may occur horizontally, such as between equal doctors, but it may also occur vertically due to an instruction/supervision relationship, such as between a supervising specialist and a resident, or between a doctor and a nurse. If a large number of medical personnel jointly practice medicine, the possibility of excessive liability increases due to communication errors or quality problems of some medical personnel. As a result, there may be a tendency not to participate in division of labor medical practice and it can lead to problems such as inability to fully concentrate on one's work. Therefore, criminal liability for medical personnel who trust that another medical personnel's medical practice is being performed properly, needs to be appropriately limited by dividing the area of liability or applying the principle of trust. The vertical division of labor has different characteristics from the horizontal division of labor due to the instruction and supervision of lower-level medical personnel by higher-level medical personnel. Although it can be said that lower-level medical personnel have a narrower scope of duties and authority or less knowledge and experience in the relevant medical field than higher-level medical personnel, it should be seen that part of the medical practice can be delegated under certain conditions, considering that all medical personnel have passed national tests through a process prescribed by the state, and our clinical reality that many tasks are entrusted to lower-level medical personnel based on the lack of medical personnel, and medical resource distribution. It is difficult to uniformly establish the requirements for delegation due to the variety of vertical division of labor, but it is appropriate to decide whether the delegation of the medical practice is allowed in consideration of the duties of the lower-level medical personnel under medical law, the content and difficulty of the relevant medical practice, the patient's condition at the time, and the degree of knowledge and experience of the delegated lower-level medical personnel.