The Korean Nurses Association (KNA) has argued that they should be responsible for the education related to clinical support duties, such as surgical assistance, which the government is currently working to authorize for nurses. Concerns have been raised that if individual hospitals manage this education, the quality would decline and would not capitalize on the professionalism and practicality that the association can provide.
Recently, the government has proposed a draft regulation favoring hospitals and medical institutions as the main operators of these educational programs. It also plans to reduce the scope of support duties and consider issuing simple completion certificates instead of qualifications.
KNA criticized the government’s draft, arguing it would fail to ensure the quality, public interest, and professionalism of such education. Shin Kyung-rim, President of KNA, pointed out that most hospitals do not have systematic training for nurses specializing in clinical support duties, and this often results in new nurses learning merely through the experiences shared by senior nurses.
Currently, about 40,000 nurses in approximately 3,300 hospital-level medical institutions are performing clinical support duties. Shin emphasized that these personnel are not merely doctor’s assistants but require separate training and systematic education to meet the demands of the field, which involves accurately assessing patient conditions and responding to clinical situations with a high level of expertise.
Internationally, nurse associations also run educational programs. For instance, the U.S. Nursing Credentialing Center oversees educational and certification programs in over 40 areas, while Japan manages educational and certification systems across 19 areas through their nursing training schools.
The association insists that the education related to clinical support duties should be supervised by organizations with expertise in nursing practice and education, like the KNA, rather than medical institutions. Shin highlighted KNA’s capabilities in running specialized education programs and stressed the importance of halting unilateral policy implementations that ignore the input from those actively working in the field.