치과의사의 전문직업성과 윤리*

In the field of health care ethics, we have two separate academic associations here in Korea, i.e., The Korean Society for Medical Ethics Education and The Korean Bioethics Association, both of which have common goals and mission. However, it is also true that each of the two has its own specific field of research. The former puts stress on ethics arising from daily clinical practices whereas the latter has specific interest in philosophical and sociological problems arising from advanced biotechnology.

Although Korean society has gone through unprecedented general strike of doctors in 2000 and still is in big turmoil, there are very few who openly evoke ethical problems arising from such extraordinary activities. Some tried to explain and justify this phenomenon using basic ethical principles, which originally were meant to be applied in clinical situation and not in strike.

I argue that we have very critical void in health care ethics, that is, professional ethics which tries to explain ethical problems at the level of social groups instead of individuals. I propose that dentistry is very good candidate for the research subject of professional ethics. I explored some possible ethical ground on which professional ethics of dentistry could be built, i. e., moralism, professionalism and unionism. And I propose that we should have more doctors, ethicists and sociologists as well as lay people who are interested not only in medical ethics and bioethics but also in professional ethics, which does not exist in itself but is continuously being produced through interactions between and among various agents.