Medical Law & Medical Malpractice: The Ghost Doctors of South Korea
- Správne Právne
- Jan 17
- 5 min read
Dear reader,
The first blog after a short hiatus is on the topic of medical law and medical malpractice. A section on the case of Kwon Dae-hee and ghost doctors in South Korea is also included to better illustrate real-life consequences of medical malpractice. This case is a milestone in the development of medical law in Korea with the Kwon Dae-hee Bill being passed
What is medical law?
It is a branch of law that is concerned with the rights and responsibilities of medical professionals as well as the rights of the patients. Some of these include the right to refuse treatment, right to fair treatment, right to doctor-patient confidentiality privilege etc.
What is medical malpractice?
Any act or omission by a medical professional during the treatment of a patient due to which a patient is harmed. This conduct would also have to deviate from standard practice in the medical community.
To be able to claim damages for medical malpractice, you would need to prove two things:
Breach of duty
This means you need to show that the medical professional's actions wouldn't be endorsed by a responsible body of opinion in the relevant specialty. As a result, the medical professional does not necessarily have to prove that what they did was optimal, only that there are some professionals within the field who can clearly articulate why they would have done things that way (meaning that the actions do not deviate too much from standard practice).
The action has caused loss
The 'but for' test – You have to show that but for the medical professional's negligence, the damage would've been avoided. This damage has to be recognised by law (usually physical but also recognised psychological diagnoses).
Who are ghost doctors?
They are a phenomenon most common, but not at all exclusive to, plastic surgery clinics. In this case the surgery is secretly performed by a different (usually less reputable or skilled) doctor (who's often from a different specialty) or a nurse (there have even been cases of medical equipment sales people performing surgery) instead of a skilled and reputable doctor who is officially supposed to perform it. Most of the time the patients never find out, as these ghost doctors only come in after the patient is put under.
The Case of Kwon Dae-hee (권대희)
Kwon was a university student. A son and a brother. He was an ambitious person who was at the same time insecure about his looks – more specifically the shape of his jawline. It was because of this that he chose to get plastic surgery to change it. He never got to see the surgery's result.
I believe that to understand the case some context is needed. In South Korea, looks seem to matter a lot. Especially in the case of young people straight out of university who are job-hunting for the first time. How do you stand out if there are many candidates for a position who are all equally competent, educated and eager? By being more conventionally attractive than the others. Same goes for getting promoted. If everyone is working overtime, giving the job their all, it might (even if subconsciously) help that you are attractive (you fit the beauty standards) as well as competent.
On September 8 2016, Kwon underwent jawline surgery. It's quite popular in East Asia and usually pretty safe. Under normal circumstances it takes one to two hours total. According to Kwon's mother Lee Na Geum, the surgery cost 6.5 million won (4342.72 €). Kwon's family tried to talk him out of getting the surgery, but Kwon secretly looked into popular clinics in Gangnam (an area home to numerous plastic surgery clinics and K-Pop agencies)that specialised in jawline surgery.
Kwon paid a premium to be operated on by the main surgeon of the clinic. He was not. Right before 1pm the main surgeon initiated the surgery but left the operating room (OR), after only an hour, without finishing the surgery.
At 2 pm the ghost surgeon (who was a general doctor not officially supposed to do the surgery and was never mentioned in the documentation) enters the OR and continues the surgery. During the following hour the main surgeon comes in and leaves again.
By 3 pm even the ghost doctor leaves. There is no doctor in the OR for almost 30 minutes.
At 4:17 pm the surgery is over. About ten minutes later, the main surgeon comes in to dress the wound. All the doctors leave to go home.
Kwon is then moved to the recovery room at 7:24 pm and left there with a nursing assistant for about 3 hours. During these 3 hours, he loses large quantities of blood. The nursing assistant mops up the blood 13 separate times but never does anything else.
At 10:44 pm the anaesthesiologist comes in to check on Kwon. Kwon should have been awake by then. The main surgeon is called in and at 11:27 pm he calls emergency services.
At 11:34 pm Kwon is taken into the hospital.
Some time later, Kwon's brother was contacted by the hospital staff and told that Kwon was in the emergency room. He was also told that Kwon's condition was not serious, which was obviously not the case as he'd lost a lot of blood and sadly ended up passing away 7 weeks later.
The clinic's representative claimed that they had nothing to do with the death and that the surgery went well. They even offered to provide Kwon's mother with the CCTV footage of the surgery (this was not mandatory, the clinic had CCTV to further the patient's trust in them). The CCTV was what proved that the clinic was in fact responsible and is also the reason we know the details of the events that took place that day down to the minute. Lee Na Geum (Kwon's mother) spent hours watching it and in May 2019 she (along with the rest of the family) won the court battle for damages of 347 000€.
The clinic stayed in business until 2022, then closed down due to unknown reasons.
What does the law have to say about this?
Apart from the damages, the 3 doctors faced manslaughter charges (manslaughter= the unlawful killing of a person without the intention to do so) and 2 doctors and nurses faced charges of unlicensed medical acts. In 2021 the director of the clinic was sentenced to 3 years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of about 3300€. This was increased to a sentence of 7 years 6 months and a fine of about 6600€. The rest of the personnel received lesser sentences.
The Kwon Dae-hee Bill
In August 2021 a bill, sometimes referred to as the Kwon Dae-hee bill, was passed by the Korean National Assembly. It mandates the installation of CCTV cameras in operation rooms on a national level (South Korea is the first country to do this on a national level). The Korean Medical Association opposed the bill, claiming that it undermines trust in doctors, violates the patient's privacy and even discourages the doctors from taking risks to save lives in fear of repercussions. In response to this, a public survey was done, the result of which being that 97.9% of respondents supported the bill.
There are, however, some exceptions. In the case of a serious situation, an emergency situation or the training of a medicine student, the CCTV does not have to be on. Is this a good thing or should these situations be watched even more intently?
Hopefully you found the blog interesting and learnt something new about this topic, which, I believe, is not talked about enough. Until we read again.
Additional resources and context:
*Please note that at no point in this blog am I providing legal advice or claiming to be a professional. These blogs are for entertainment and educational purposes only. If anything is misinterpreted or there's additional information that wasn't included, feel free to contact me through the Contact section of the website.*
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