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Should trainee doctors be present in delivery room?

Lee Jung-eun had an unpleasant experience when she gave birth to a baby at Asan Medical Center in Seoul in 2009.

She was so happy to have her first baby but the happiest moment in the delivery room was marred by uninvited guests.

As she was uncomfortable with male obstetricians, she had a female doctor check and treat her for the entire period of the pregnancy.

But when she was moved to the delivery room on the due day, two male and female doctors, who she had never seen before, started to check her conditions and later watched her go through labor.

She learned that they were interns and it was part of their training.

I felt embarrassed and in a way humiliated, the 33-year-old mother said. I felt my privacy was violated. The hospital had not told me anything about the interns nor obtained my approval for them to enter the delivery room.

She and her husband could not make any complaint because they were too concerned about the labor and at that time they only thought it was strange for unfamiliar doctors to be with them, she said.

But Lee said her experience is mild or normal compared to other cases involving some other pregnant women.

I have heard that a group of five or six trainee doctors sometimes enter a delivery room all together to watch the procedure of labor at big hospitals.

You must feel like an animal in a zoo or something, she said.

So people advise pregnant women not to go to a big hospital between May and July, when interns are mostly invited to delivery rooms.

A survey also shows most pregnant women said hospitals should at least seek and obtain approval in advance for the presence of interns in delivery rooms.

According to a survey of 521 pregnant women last year, 473 of the respondents said hospitals should receive an approval in advance,

and 31 said no interns should be allowed to enter a delivery room.

The survey was conducted last year by Rep.

Yang Seung-jo of the main opposition Democratic United Party, who planned to submit a bill to restrict interns from entering operation and delivery rooms without the approval of patients, even for the purpose of medical training.

But the bill failed to be submitted to the National Assembly due to strong oppositions from doctorswho claim that the bill attempts to deprive would-be obstetricians of important training.

Observing the procedure of labor is a core part of training for would-be obstetricians, said Shin Jung-ho, secretary general of the Korean Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology and an obstetrician at the Korea University Medical Center.

Allowing interns to be at a delivery room will help them become better obstetricians for pregnant women in 10 to 20 years.

But civic groups argue that it is necessary to ask pregnant women permission to allow the presence of interns at delivery rooms to protect basic human rights.

They also demand a law should be legislated to root out the wrong tradition.

It is obviously a violation of basic human rights, said Kim Hyung-wan, director of the Korea Human Rights Policy Institute.

Nothing can come before the importance of privacy, which is protected by the Constitution.

In other countries such as the U.S. and Canada, they strictly prohibit the presence of interns in delivery rooms without the approval of patients, he said.

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