의료분쟁 조정제도에 관한 근본적 검토 - 제도적 과제와 전망 -

About 12 years have passed since the Korea Medical Dispute Mediation Arbitration Board, which specializes in appraisal and mediation of medical disputes, began its work. The Act on Relief for Medical Accident Damage and Mediation of Medical Disputes, which is the basis for this, has an experience that it was not easy to achieve social consensus as it took 23 years in the process of enacting it. In this regard, the government recently unveiled the draft of the Special Act on the Treatment of Medical Accidents, and said that it would prepare a more reliable system by reorganizing the mediation procedure of the current Korea Medical Dispute Mediation Arbitration Board on the premise that criminal punishment is reduced or exempted for medical personnel when medical personnel and patients participate in the mediation process of the Korean Medical Dispute Mediation Arbitration Board. Although the government's plan to improve the mediation system has not yet been finalized, related data include the introduction of a tentatively named patient spokesperson system, the establishment of a communication law between patients and medical personnel, the establishment of an objection procedure by the parties to medical evaluation results, and the introduction of Ombudsman for the proceedings. In this regard, full-scale discussions are expected to take place between the National Assembly, the government, the medical community, and patient organizations in the future, and it is difficult to discuss the validity of individual systems at a time when specific plans for establishing a system have not been disclosed, but the direction of improving the medical dispute mediation system to a more reliable system should be evaluated as reasonable. However, although improvements have been made in basic operational directions, such as the introduction of a partial automatic disclosure system, since the implementation of the medical dispute mediation system, it is true that there has been a lack of institutional incentives to allow the parties to actively consider mediation by administrative agencies in relation to litigation. It seems necessary to check whether there is a need to move toward more help and benefits to the parties through improvement of basic operational measures, which are an important axis of the mediation process, on the premise of establishing various mediation innovation measures currently discussed. Therefore, this paper proposes ways to reduce exhausting disputes and resolve disputes quickly and fairly for both patients and medical professionals in the future, thereby contributing to both immediate damage relief and the creation of a stable medical environment.