Papers by Seonsam Na
East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal
Based upon the view that walking is a highly social act, i.e. "grounding" oneself in the realitie... more Based upon the view that walking is a highly social act, i.e. "grounding" oneself in the realities, not just the medium of "moving," this paper explores robotassisted rehabilitation and patients' aspirations concerning it. Fieldwork conducted in rehabilitation hospitals and disability centers in South Korea, reveals that rehabilitative medicine settles uneasily on the notion of neuroplasticity as a theoretical tool to legitimize robot-assisted therapy sessions, in the absence both of upstream treatment options such as stem cell therapy and their discernible benefits over human-based intervention. The patient's clear preference to walk rather than to move, and hence to regain the whole package of sociality associated with the bodily technique underlies their high expectations toward robots. Under these insights, the paper argues that, for the field to enhance its clinical impact, the current regime focused on mechanical, or neurophysiological, aspects of walking should incorporate elements vitalizing the sociality constitutive of it. Keywords Robot-assisted rehabilitation ▪ walking ▪ grounding ▪ South Korea ▪ neuroplasticity
불교학보, 2024
중국의 문호개방에 따른 80년대의 동양학 붐, 전(全)국민건강보험의 실시, IMF 이후 찾아온 의료계열 열풍 등으로 2000년대까지 의대를 넘어선 인기를 구가하던 한의계에 위... more 중국의 문호개방에 따른 80년대의 동양학 붐, 전(全)국민건강보험의 실시, IMF 이후 찾아온 의료계열 열풍 등으로 2000년대까지 의대를 넘어선 인기를 구가하던 한의계에 위기의식이 고조되고 있다. 의료계에 반복되던 실체 없는 위기론과는 달리 최근 한의계의 언설에는 실체가 있어 보인다. 4프로 대를 유지하던 건강보험점유율은 2021년에 2프로 대로 추락한 바 있고, 양방과 치과의 꾸준한 성장과 대비되게 경제적으로도 침체의 늪에 빠져 있다. 양방과 치과에 대한 ‘상대적 위기’가 좀 더 정확한 표현이겠지만, 첩약시장을 잠식한 건강기능식품 시장의 성장, 양방 위주의 실손보험 영역의 확대, 감염병 관리주체인 한의사가 배제된 정부의 코로나팬데믹 대처 등을 보았을 때 한의계의 이러한 우려는 수긍 가는 면이 없지 않다. 필자는 한의계의 위기설을 한국의료의 전체 맥락에서 바라보고자 한다. 한의학의 역할 감소가 눈에 띄는 트렌드라는 관점에서 보면 이는 이원화체제 하의 한국의료의 지형에 변화가 발생하고 있다는 것을 의미하기 때문이다. 서양의학의 대항추 역할을 해온 한의학의 기능이 저하됨에 따라 한국사회는 생기술에 의해 서서히 포섭(biotechnically embraced)되어 가고 있다. 더불어 건강영역에 있어 과학주의 환원론(還元論)은 범람한다. 필자는 이러한 한국의료의 현실을 우려스럽게 바라보며 한의사의 역할을 재규정함으로써 이러한 불균형을 시정할 수 있다고 주장한다. 또한 한의계의 개혁을 중요한 과제로 제시하며 자신들의 정체성의 상부구조의 역할을 한 도그마에 기반한 유의(儒醫)적 고전주의 전통에서 탈피하여 하부구조를 이루는 과학의 영역을 확장시키는 작업을 해야 한다고 역설한다. 그리고 이작업에 불교의 자각론(⾃覺論)과 생태주의가 사상적 길잡이가 될 수 있다고 주장한다. 자각 중심의 태도는 임상추론의 귀납적(歸納的) 특성을 강화하여 현대의과학과의 접목을 가능케 하며 생태적 접근은 과학주의 환원론을 극복하는데 도움 줄 수 있다고 판단하기 때문이다. 과감한 개혁을 통해 한의학이 현대과학의 체계 내에서 자기완결성과 외부확장성을 가진 학문으로 거듭날 때 미래지향적인 한국적 신(新)의료의 모습도 구체적으로 드러날 것이다. 이를 위해 이해당사자들에게는 행정편의주의와 직역이기주의를 넘어서는 태도가 그리고 당국자들에게는 의료이원화제도를 부담이 아닌 자산이라고 여기는 인식이 요구된다 하겠다.
Korean medicine is a Korean form of traditional East Asian medicine whose mainstream status has allowed it to be considerably biomedicalized in the form of institutional structures while maintaining an identity distinct from its Western counterpart. Therefore, its practitioners, or KMDs, are trained on what is called the superstructure of traditional East Asian medicine and on the infrastructure of biomedicine under the country"s dual medical licensing system, by which MDs and KMDs have comparable sociolegal status. This paper is an attempt at analyzing the “crisis” that the KM community has encountered recently due to several factors, including the rise of the health supplement markets and expansion of private medical insurance that hugely favored MDs. It concludes that for the Korean healthcare to counter the increased “biotechnical embrace” and the associated overflowing of reductionist tendencies in healthcare, the authorities should utilize Korean medicine wisely as a counterweight to balance biomedical excess rather than obliterate it through license unitarization. Arguing for the necessity of extensive reforms in the KM community, this paper proposes Buddhist principles of self-realization and ecological thinking as guides for its reform. It claims that the community should shed its reliance on Confucianist dogmas and focus on deepening its scientific basis so that Korean medicine develops into a form under which it shares its foundation with Western medicine but carves out its own identity as a medicine specializing in immunity. This study introduces clinical cases to support this argument and suggests curriculum reform as a way to achieve this objective.
의철학연구 (Korean Journal of Philosophy of Medicine), 2023
Guillan-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is a rare neuropathic disease
characterized by the monophasic progre... more Guillan-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is a rare neuropathic disease
characterized by the monophasic progression of paralysis, affecting the
limbs and the trunk, and by the high rate of recovery. The condition is
frequently preceded by intestinal infection caused by Campylobacter
jejuni, on the basis of which it is believed that the destruction of the
myelin sheath covering the peripheral nerve is triggered by a mechanism
called ‘molecular mimicry.’ This process occurs when antibodies created
by previously generated bacterial infection mistakenly attack the nerve
tissues by the misrecognition of molecular markers. This article engages
with this interesting condition philosophically through the concept of
‘imaginary’ based on the author’s role as a physician of Korean medicine,
the mainstream medical profession in South Korea associated with the
practice of traditional East Asian medicine (EAM). With some epistemic
freedom from the constraining ‘embrace’ of biomedical principles granted
by that positionality, the author offers two imaginaries concerning GBS:
one linguistic, the other EAM-based. For the linguistic interpretation, the
author argues, based on studies on walking that illustrate the shared
properties between walking and speech (having rhythm and cadence, as well as the intent to engage with the outside world), the paralysis of GBS
can be analogous to that of speech, i.e. mutism or aphasia, in that those
shared properties disintegrate. For the EAM-based interpretation, the author argues that given the non-musculoskeletal characteristics manifested in GBS, the condition can be considered as ‘the cold-damp disorder’(寒濕病), or diarrheal disease, in the imaginaries of EAM. These deliberations open the door for philosophical engagement with medical conditions for improving the clinical management of GBS.
Medicine Anthropology Theory (MAT), 2021
Until recently in South Korea, the central dilemma facing children with ageing parents was how an... more Until recently in South Korea, the central dilemma facing children with ageing parents was how and by whom their parents should be cared for. In accordance with the norm of filial piety, the eldest son used to take responsibility. However, with the recent proliferation of long-term care hospitals, this arrangement is changing. These institutions, which play the combined role of rehabilitative hospital, long-term care centre, and nursing home, admit elderly people who do not require active medical intervention. The government's promotion of these hospitals, centred on deregulation, ambiguity around their function, and the lack of alternative care facilities, has led to an expansion of the sector and consequently to the 'nursing hom(e)fication' of many of these institutions. While these hospitals ease the pressures associated with an ageing population, their mainstreaming has had an impact on healthcare, medicine, and the lives of elderly people. The hospital field has become commercialised, medical practice is being transformed, and the dignity of elderly people is being lost through hospitalisation. In this new care regime, filial piety itself is undergoing transformation-from an ideology underpinning the domestication of care, to the market idiom of service compliance. In this article, I introduce these hospitals and investigate how their growth has brought about a Korean style of elderly care commodification, revealing the undercurrents of healthcare privatisation and the neoliberalisation of welfare.
Korean Studies, 2021
This paper explores the characteristics of the professional identity of the Doctors of Korean Med... more This paper explores the characteristics of the professional identity of the Doctors of Korean Medicine (KMD), a medical profession in South Korea practicing traditional East Asian medicine. They play a primary care role in healthcare, notwithstanding the legally limited purview of their clinical and public health roles. This mainstream position came their way through biomedicalization that occurred in the profession in the context of the country's private sector-led health system. Based on data gathered among KMDs and in state-level policymaking scenes as an insider, this paper aims to illustrate the characteristics of KMDs' identity by attending to multiple levels of their presence as modern medical profession. In doing so, it draws on works that explored medical identity, Simon Sinclair's (1997) Making Doctors: An Institutional Apprenticeship in particular, to show that despite their similarities to biomedical practitioners, KMDs exhibit discriminating characteristics in their professional consciousness.
Integrative Medicine Research, 2017
Background
This study aims to examine the characteristics and behavioral patterns of patients wi... more Background
This study aims to examine the characteristics and behavioral patterns of patients with chronic conditions behind their parallel use of the conventional medicine (CM) and the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) that includes traditional Korean Medicine (KM).
Methods
This cross-sectional study used the self-administered anonymous survey method to obtain the results from inpatients who were staying in three hospitals in Gyeongnam province in Korea.
Results
Of the 423 participants surveyed, 334 participants (79.0%) used some form of CAM among which KM therapies were the most common modalities. The results of a logistic regression analysis showed that the parallel use pattern was most apparent in the groups aged over 40. Patients with hypertension or joint diseases were seen to have higher propensity to show the parallel use patterns, whereas patients with diabetes were not. In addition, many sociodemographic and health-related characteristics are related to the patterns of the parallel use of CAM and CM.
Conclusion
In the rural area of Korea, most inpatients who used CM for the management of chronic conditions used CAM in parallel. KM was the most common in CAM modalities, and the aspect of parallel use varied according to the disease conditions.
Keywords: chronic disease, complementary and alternative medicine, parallel use, traditional Korean Medicine
Integrating East Asian Medicine into Contemporary Healthcare, 2012
The Third Medicine Vol. 7 No. 1, Dec 31, 2003
Newspaper coverage by Seonsam Na
IEKAS Issue 13-04 (No. 621), Jan 20, 2013
Minjok Medicine Weekly, Nov 8, 2012
Lecture materials by Seonsam Na
Uploads
Papers by Seonsam Na
Korean medicine is a Korean form of traditional East Asian medicine whose mainstream status has allowed it to be considerably biomedicalized in the form of institutional structures while maintaining an identity distinct from its Western counterpart. Therefore, its practitioners, or KMDs, are trained on what is called the superstructure of traditional East Asian medicine and on the infrastructure of biomedicine under the country"s dual medical licensing system, by which MDs and KMDs have comparable sociolegal status. This paper is an attempt at analyzing the “crisis” that the KM community has encountered recently due to several factors, including the rise of the health supplement markets and expansion of private medical insurance that hugely favored MDs. It concludes that for the Korean healthcare to counter the increased “biotechnical embrace” and the associated overflowing of reductionist tendencies in healthcare, the authorities should utilize Korean medicine wisely as a counterweight to balance biomedical excess rather than obliterate it through license unitarization. Arguing for the necessity of extensive reforms in the KM community, this paper proposes Buddhist principles of self-realization and ecological thinking as guides for its reform. It claims that the community should shed its reliance on Confucianist dogmas and focus on deepening its scientific basis so that Korean medicine develops into a form under which it shares its foundation with Western medicine but carves out its own identity as a medicine specializing in immunity. This study introduces clinical cases to support this argument and suggests curriculum reform as a way to achieve this objective.
characterized by the monophasic progression of paralysis, affecting the
limbs and the trunk, and by the high rate of recovery. The condition is
frequently preceded by intestinal infection caused by Campylobacter
jejuni, on the basis of which it is believed that the destruction of the
myelin sheath covering the peripheral nerve is triggered by a mechanism
called ‘molecular mimicry.’ This process occurs when antibodies created
by previously generated bacterial infection mistakenly attack the nerve
tissues by the misrecognition of molecular markers. This article engages
with this interesting condition philosophically through the concept of
‘imaginary’ based on the author’s role as a physician of Korean medicine,
the mainstream medical profession in South Korea associated with the
practice of traditional East Asian medicine (EAM). With some epistemic
freedom from the constraining ‘embrace’ of biomedical principles granted
by that positionality, the author offers two imaginaries concerning GBS:
one linguistic, the other EAM-based. For the linguistic interpretation, the
author argues, based on studies on walking that illustrate the shared
properties between walking and speech (having rhythm and cadence, as well as the intent to engage with the outside world), the paralysis of GBS
can be analogous to that of speech, i.e. mutism or aphasia, in that those
shared properties disintegrate. For the EAM-based interpretation, the author argues that given the non-musculoskeletal characteristics manifested in GBS, the condition can be considered as ‘the cold-damp disorder’(寒濕病), or diarrheal disease, in the imaginaries of EAM. These deliberations open the door for philosophical engagement with medical conditions for improving the clinical management of GBS.
This study aims to examine the characteristics and behavioral patterns of patients with chronic conditions behind their parallel use of the conventional medicine (CM) and the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) that includes traditional Korean Medicine (KM).
Methods
This cross-sectional study used the self-administered anonymous survey method to obtain the results from inpatients who were staying in three hospitals in Gyeongnam province in Korea.
Results
Of the 423 participants surveyed, 334 participants (79.0%) used some form of CAM among which KM therapies were the most common modalities. The results of a logistic regression analysis showed that the parallel use pattern was most apparent in the groups aged over 40. Patients with hypertension or joint diseases were seen to have higher propensity to show the parallel use patterns, whereas patients with diabetes were not. In addition, many sociodemographic and health-related characteristics are related to the patterns of the parallel use of CAM and CM.
Conclusion
In the rural area of Korea, most inpatients who used CM for the management of chronic conditions used CAM in parallel. KM was the most common in CAM modalities, and the aspect of parallel use varied according to the disease conditions.
Keywords: chronic disease, complementary and alternative medicine, parallel use, traditional Korean Medicine
Newspaper coverage by Seonsam Na
Lecture materials by Seonsam Na
Korean medicine is a Korean form of traditional East Asian medicine whose mainstream status has allowed it to be considerably biomedicalized in the form of institutional structures while maintaining an identity distinct from its Western counterpart. Therefore, its practitioners, or KMDs, are trained on what is called the superstructure of traditional East Asian medicine and on the infrastructure of biomedicine under the country"s dual medical licensing system, by which MDs and KMDs have comparable sociolegal status. This paper is an attempt at analyzing the “crisis” that the KM community has encountered recently due to several factors, including the rise of the health supplement markets and expansion of private medical insurance that hugely favored MDs. It concludes that for the Korean healthcare to counter the increased “biotechnical embrace” and the associated overflowing of reductionist tendencies in healthcare, the authorities should utilize Korean medicine wisely as a counterweight to balance biomedical excess rather than obliterate it through license unitarization. Arguing for the necessity of extensive reforms in the KM community, this paper proposes Buddhist principles of self-realization and ecological thinking as guides for its reform. It claims that the community should shed its reliance on Confucianist dogmas and focus on deepening its scientific basis so that Korean medicine develops into a form under which it shares its foundation with Western medicine but carves out its own identity as a medicine specializing in immunity. This study introduces clinical cases to support this argument and suggests curriculum reform as a way to achieve this objective.
characterized by the monophasic progression of paralysis, affecting the
limbs and the trunk, and by the high rate of recovery. The condition is
frequently preceded by intestinal infection caused by Campylobacter
jejuni, on the basis of which it is believed that the destruction of the
myelin sheath covering the peripheral nerve is triggered by a mechanism
called ‘molecular mimicry.’ This process occurs when antibodies created
by previously generated bacterial infection mistakenly attack the nerve
tissues by the misrecognition of molecular markers. This article engages
with this interesting condition philosophically through the concept of
‘imaginary’ based on the author’s role as a physician of Korean medicine,
the mainstream medical profession in South Korea associated with the
practice of traditional East Asian medicine (EAM). With some epistemic
freedom from the constraining ‘embrace’ of biomedical principles granted
by that positionality, the author offers two imaginaries concerning GBS:
one linguistic, the other EAM-based. For the linguistic interpretation, the
author argues, based on studies on walking that illustrate the shared
properties between walking and speech (having rhythm and cadence, as well as the intent to engage with the outside world), the paralysis of GBS
can be analogous to that of speech, i.e. mutism or aphasia, in that those
shared properties disintegrate. For the EAM-based interpretation, the author argues that given the non-musculoskeletal characteristics manifested in GBS, the condition can be considered as ‘the cold-damp disorder’(寒濕病), or diarrheal disease, in the imaginaries of EAM. These deliberations open the door for philosophical engagement with medical conditions for improving the clinical management of GBS.
This study aims to examine the characteristics and behavioral patterns of patients with chronic conditions behind their parallel use of the conventional medicine (CM) and the complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) that includes traditional Korean Medicine (KM).
Methods
This cross-sectional study used the self-administered anonymous survey method to obtain the results from inpatients who were staying in three hospitals in Gyeongnam province in Korea.
Results
Of the 423 participants surveyed, 334 participants (79.0%) used some form of CAM among which KM therapies were the most common modalities. The results of a logistic regression analysis showed that the parallel use pattern was most apparent in the groups aged over 40. Patients with hypertension or joint diseases were seen to have higher propensity to show the parallel use patterns, whereas patients with diabetes were not. In addition, many sociodemographic and health-related characteristics are related to the patterns of the parallel use of CAM and CM.
Conclusion
In the rural area of Korea, most inpatients who used CM for the management of chronic conditions used CAM in parallel. KM was the most common in CAM modalities, and the aspect of parallel use varied according to the disease conditions.
Keywords: chronic disease, complementary and alternative medicine, parallel use, traditional Korean Medicine