[KS] Re: gynecologists

[goodwins]

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Dear Jason:

I am curious about what exactly it was that you found "ethnocentric" about Henny's
comments?

I actually trained as a Geriatric Social Worker and have had quite a bit of
experience --both practically and theoretically-- with the issue of "medical
restraints"; e.g., straight jackets, wrist and ankle immobilizers, bed rails, etc.

The Korean health care system does not exist in a cultural vacuum. (Wasn't it
Canadians, in fact, who in large measure laid the institutional framework of modern,
Western medical practice in Korea a hundred years ago or so? Avison of Toronto,
etc.?)

Given this, it is not, I think, improper to judge contemporary Korean practices in
the light of contemporary, Western style medical practices generally. If this is not
the case, why then was the teaching hospital at my local university in North
Carolina so full of eager residents form Korea?

>From this point of view it is disturbing to hear that, in Korea, the hands of
pregnant women are mandatorily bound during delivery: the level of risk of injury to
self --or other-- simply cannot justify such a procedure. (And today the ethical
justification of intrusive practices of any sort is all about assessing and then
evaluating relative degrees of risk to self and other.)

As well, I imagine that most biomedical ethicists would concede that the argument
from ethnocentrism looses out to various arguments based on notions of patient
"autonomy", "dignity", etc. These latter ideas are --since or indeed because of the
history of Avison et al. in Korea-- notions that cut ACROSS cultures.

Best,

Mike Goodwin
(Toronto, CA & College Station, TX)