[NewsUP] Nursing Act Passed... Controversial 'PA Nurses' Enter the System / YTN
■ Host: Anchor Yoon Jae-hee
■ Guest: Attorney Oh Ji-eun (Former Nurse)
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[Anchor]
The Nursing Act, a long-cherished goal of the nursing community, has passed the threshold of the National Assembly. We will examine the key issues and identify any areas that need improvement. We are joined by Attorney Oh Ji-eun, a former nurse. Welcome. I understand that you worked in the Intensive Care Unit at Seoul National University Hospital for a long time. What significance do you see in the passage of this Nursing Act?
[Oh Ji-eun]
The significance of the passage of the Nursing Act for the nursing community lies in the fact that a framework has finally been established to define the duties of nurses—specifically, the tasks that doctors and others can and cannot direct to nurses, who are the only staff members permitted to work under the Medical Service Act.
[Anchor]
The key point is the guarantee of legal status for clinical support nurses, also known as PA nurses. It is said that the term "PA nurse" does not exist in our country.
[Oh Ji-eun] Just like how it is expressed in the alphabet, it does not exist in any law, not even the Medical Service Act. It is not just the term that is missing; the duties themselves are not recorded even after the work is performed. In actual medical malpractice cases involving PAs, I asked the hospitals multiple times through the courts, but their very existence was denied repeatedly, and they have never been recognized even once.
[Anchor] The term "Specialized Nurse" exists; is it different from that?
[Oh Ji-eun] Specialized Nurses are personnel whose qualifications are fully met, including the Medical Service Act, the Enforcement Rules of the Medical Service Act, and separate qualification recognition rules. Therefore, despite having all the necessary qualifications and educational curriculums, doctors have been hiring PA personnel—who are not in the regulations—instead of Specialized Nurses, and making them perform "shadow labor" because hospital directors refuse to hire them.
[Anchor] Then, first of all, what kind of duties do PA nurses mainly undertake at the hospital?
[Oh Ji-eun] That is the problem. They perform surgeries in some places and issue orders in others. In some places, they submit papers for academic conferences or accompany doctors to conferences to drive. The biggest problem is that everything remains hidden. By defining this aspect as "clinical support" in the new Nursing Act, we need to organize the duties nurses will perform going forward.
[Anchor] It is known that PA nurses have been filling the void left by the mass resignation of resident doctors. Strictly speaking, were these actions illegal?
[Oh Ji-eun] Yes, they are illegal. That is why the government has recently been conducting a pilot project. The issue arose not because everything they do is illegal, but because there was no legal boundary between what is within and what is outside the law.
[Anchor] Then, I imagine there have been cases where PA nurses have been involved in lawsuits due to medical accidents or similar incidents during their duties.
[Oh Ji-eun] There are very many. However, ironically, patients have no way of knowing about it. I have mainly received a few urgent calls from the PA nurses themselves or from those who assigned work to the PAs. The cases that lead to lawsuits are as follows: even if a problem arises after a PA is involved in a medical procedure and the patient dies, there is no record of it—it is not found anywhere in the records. A situation has occurred that would not have happened if a doctor had been present. However, if the existence of the PA is discovered by chance—through audio recordings, or if the patient saw someone who was not a doctor—then that situation becomes known... (omitted)
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