Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
KU Medicine seeks new models for post-pandemic healthcare
Kim Young-hoon, executive vice president for medical affairs at KU, speaks during the “Next Normal Conference 2020” hosted by the school at the College of Medicine building in Anam, Seoul, Thursday. Courtesy of KU Medicine
By Bahk Eun-ji
KU held “Next Normal Conference” with world-renowned scholars
By Bahk Eun-ji
Korea University (KU) Medicine held a conference to seek a sustainable direction for the “next normal” for human society after COVID-19 pandemic, including health care, leadership, economic growth and development.
With the title of “Next-normal Conference 2020,” KU Medicine co-hosted the conference with Johns Hopkins University, the University of Manchester and Freie Universitat Berlin at the KU college of Medicine building in Anam, Seoul, Thursday.
The event started with a video greeting from Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, and a number of world-renowned scholars such as Jim Dator, professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Martin McKee, professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and domestic experts including Kwon Jun-wook, director of the Korea National Institute of Health and Kim Woo-joo, professor of infectious diseases division of the KU Guro Hospital joined to share their thoughts on how to redefine “normal” in the age of COVID-19.
Dator, who gave a keynote speech at the conference, talked with Kim Young-hoon, executive vice president for medical affairs at KU, after giving a lecture titled “Learning from a cleft in time: four futures.”
In the talks, the two professors exchanged a wide range of opinions on the topics of the philosophy of solidarity, the interaction between artificial intelligent (AI) and human collective intelligence, how to enhance social immunity and the role of Korea's global leadership in the post-pandemic world when the crisis is over.
“People around the world have been forced to isolate themselves in order to survive during the pandemic, although the world is connected by technology development. However, I believe we should still pursue the philosophy of solidarity for co-existence, which is the lesson we learned from such new types of virus pandemic such as COVID-19, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and H1N1,” Kim said.
“This time we have started to discuss from healthcare sector, but eventually the discussion should be expanded to all areas such as economy, jobs, social stability, politics, and international exchanges, he added. “We need a serious discussion to come up with adequate responses so that the world can move in the right direction together.”
Essentially, the COVID-19 crisis is a health care issue, and each country has had a significant socio-economic impact in the prevention, patient management and treatment capabilities of the new type of virus. This means that the role of the public health system will be, or has already significantly changed ahead of the post-pandemic world.
To answer the question of what he thinks the role of health care in the post-pandemic world, especially compared to the previous one, Kim said it will be of key importance to accurately find value through agreement between members of a society.
“During this coronavirus outbreak, we can say we have all observed the failure of the health care systems in western developed countries. On the other hand in Korea, the balance and partnership of private hospitals and public insurance systems enabled universal accessibility as well as a successful response to the COVID-19 crisis,” Kim said.
“In the end, I think it's important to build a solid and organic public―private partnership (PPP) to successfully manage such a situation when public health is endangered.”
In the conference, experts also shared their knowledge about how to prepare for the further possible virus outbreaks.
Song Jin-won, a professor of microbiology at KU's College of Medicine, reexamined the history of humankind overcoming viruses through the discovery of the Hantan virus and the development of preventive vaccines in a special lecture, and forecast new viruses to come.
Martin McKee, a world-renowned health scientist, gave a presentation titled “COVID-19 and the economy ― We need a consistent response that includes both,” and Courtland Robinson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health talked on the theme “Human immobility and health in a post-COVID-19 world.”
In addition, Lee Eun-jung, director of Graduate School of East Asian Studies at the Institute of Korean Studies in Freie Universitat Berlin, talked about diagnosis and seeking solutions to the greatest threats to mankind, in a talk titled “Racism and discrimination in COVID-19 responses.”