The revision of the Medical Service Act in South Korea finally started taking effect after the two-year grace period, making surveillance in operating rooms an obligation. All surgery rooms that operate on unconscious patients now have to install surveillance cameras and provide footage upon patients’ request.

Installing surveillance cameras in surgery rooms has been a third rail in South Korea. Despite most emergency rooms being equipped with them, surgery rooms have remained pristine, with the main argument being doctors’ rights; surveillance cameras may compromise their performance by putting them under immense pressure. Many doctors argue that surveillance cameras symbolize distrust; they establish a rather toxic relationship where the patients put the doctors under watch. Another is the possibility of privacy breaches, although current measures state that the cameras should be disconnected from external networks, and medical institutions should leave footage only when patients request it.

The main raison d’etre of the revision is best explained by retrospecting why it was proposed in the first place. In 2016, Dae-hee Kwon, a university student, died due to excessive bleeding after receiving plastic surgery. Investigations revealed that most parts of the procedure was carried out by a “ghost doctor,” who did not bear a plastic surgery license and that nursing assistants undertook unauthorized medical practices.

Kwon is not the first nor the last victim; some medical incidents even went unnoticed and unsolved. The disturbing truth is that operating rooms have been far too concealed to even those who deserve knowledge of what happened inside — in spite of suspected medical malpractice like proxy surgeries, there was no concrete evidence that non-medical staff could collect to prove such. Thus, to ensure the right to know, the presence of surveillance cameras is essential, and this outweighs any “inconvenience” doctors may experience because of it. Although the surveillance cameras only capture the overall landscape of operating rooms, they provide more than sufficient information to detect and prove any proxy surgeries or sexual assaults, which have happened against many unconscious patients.

Moreover, surveillance cameras can guarantee medical staff’s rights, contrary to the negative sentiment among the medical community. For patients with an unfavorable prognosis, surgeries may turn out to be unsuccessful even without the fault on the part of the medical staff. In many legal disputes that have arisen in the past, the medical staff were held responsible if they could not prove their innocence. Surveillance footage can be used as evidence in these cases, allowing fairer judgment. The revision also gives medical staff the option to reject filming in necessary cases, such as surgeries for residency training and emergency operations. 

Cameras are not there to monitor medical staff and treat them as potential criminals — after all, no one really says this about surveillance cameras installed in public areas. If some doctors feel that this hinders them from doing their best, they should re-examine their sense of duty. The same complaint is not raised by doctors in the emergency rooms, where surveillance cameras have been an obligation, and this is not a valid claim to make when the revision protects doctors by all means, for instance, giving them the option to reject filming on special occasions. In the end, if doctors have done nothing wrong, the only chance is that the footage will speak for them.

A line in the Declaration of Geneva, more commonly referred to as the Hippocratic Oath, reads, “I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity.” Disclosing complete information to those they treat is a part of the medical staff’s conscience, and what enables them to practice with conscience is faith that they won’t suffer injustice while duly carrying through their vocation. The new revision is a step towards both. Putting aside the bitterness, it is time to ponder how to move forward with this welcomed change.