Three Spine Hospital Doctors Appeal but License Revoked Again for Proxy Surgery by Assistant

Court: "High Salaries for Doctors Are to Respect Life"

Doctors who had nursing assistants perform surgeries on their behalf were sentenced to 'revocation of medical licenses' again in the appellate court.

On the 1st, the Criminal Division 1 of Gwangju District Court (Chief Judge Kim Pyeong-ho) announced that it dismissed both the defendants' and the prosecution's appeals in the appellate trial of three doctors and three nursing assistants from a spine hospital in Gwangju, who were indicted for violating the Special Act on the Control of Health Crimes (illegal medical practitioners) and other charges.

Representative Director A (63) and two other doctors were indicted for having nursing assistants perform surgical suturing and other procedures 13 times in the operating room between 2017 and 2018. The three nursing assistants were indicted for performing unlicensed medical acts such as skin suturing. In the first trial, they were sentenced to 1 to 1.5 years in prison with 2 to 3 years of probation and fined simultaneously.

In both the first and appellate trials, they argued that "proxy surgeries are an unavoidable reality in the medical field, and the proxy surgeries in this case were limited to skin suturing only," appealing to "please prevent only the revocation of medical licenses." However, the court did not accept these arguments. The defendants also claimed that punishing them under the Special Act, which carries heavier penalties than the Medical Service Act, was unfair. Nevertheless, the appellate court dismissed the request for a constitutional review of the law and ruled that applying the Special Act was not problematic. Furthermore, the court stated that entrusting nursing assistants, who are not medical professionals, with skin suturing?a surgical act?was clearly a violation of the law regardless of the risk involved, and also found the fact that nursing assistants and doctors jointly performed unlicensed medical acts for profit to be guilty.

The appellate court stated, "The defendants' proxy surgery acts betrayed the trust of patients," and criticized, "The defendants' mindset that there is no responsibility because no problems occurred from the proxy surgeries is very wrong." It added, "Mistakes repeated under the pretext of custom should not be ignored, and avoiding responsibility is unacceptable; adhering to the basics is most important."

The doctors who received suspended sentences again in the appellate trial committed their crimes before the so-called 'Medical License Revocation Act' was enacted, but they fall under cases where medical licenses are revoked upon final Supreme Court rulings if sentenced to imprisonment or higher for violating the Special Act on Health Crimes or the Medical Service Act. The so-called 'Medical License Revocation Act,' which came into effect in November last year, stipulates that medical licenses of healthcare professionals sentenced to imprisonment or higher shall be revoked.