Nursing Act Legislation

On Aug. 28, the National Assembly passed a bill redefining the duties of physician assistant nurses, giving them a much wider range of responsibilities than before. Currently, nurses are only responsible for taking care of patients and assisting doctors, but, if the new bill gets signed by President Yoon Suk-yeol, nurses will have a greater autonomy in performing treatments and procedures under a physician’s delegation.

The bill's passage has been heavily criticized by the Korean Medical Association, arguing it would destroy the training system for trainee doctors and would put nurses in danger of legal troubles for potential incidents, along with other accusations of possible power imbalances inside hospitals. The situation that triggered the need for this bill to be passed was the walkout of trainee doctors as a protest against the government’s decision to hike the national medical school enrollment quota. In situations like this, nurses have to step in and fill the vacancies left by absentee doctors. Passing this law might be the next step in giving nurses much-needed protection under the law.

The government has assured the public that the implementation of this law will be smooth and will be helpful for nurses to grow in their profession. If the law is accompanied by a proper, reliable system that ensures safety for patients with proper training for nurses, this might be a very good approach to resolve the country's current shortage of doctors.

By Saheli Mukherjee, Sophomore,
Dept. of Faculty of Economics