I recently attended the 2025 Spring Conference of The Society of Internal Korean Medicine (IKM).
I am simply practicing medicine as I believe is right in a small clinic, so I was deeply grateful for the invitation. It was an even greater honor as this year's conference commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Society.
The lecture was titled "A Korean Medicine Physician's Practice of the Internal Medicine Specialty: Paving the Way for the Future of Internal Medicine Care."
In the presentation, I proposed a new concept: moving beyond the conventional "Internal Korean Medicine" to "Internal Medicine by Korean Medicine Physicians."
I shared real patient feedback, such as, "It's hard to find a Korean Medicine clinic that treats actual diseases," and emphasized that the essence of internal medicine is "studying complexity" and "applying expertise to puzzling medical problems."
This philosophy deeply aligns with Korean Medicine's holistic perspective.
I argued that when specialists confidently claim their specialty, we provide patients with a crucial new healthcare choice: the ability to consider and select either a 'Western' internal medicine clinic or a 'Korean Medicine' internal medicine clinic for their care.
Like the message, "Let's move beyond 'Liver, Heart, Spleen, Lung, Kidney' and join the great flow of Internal Medicine," I hope to see many more Korean Medicine internal medicine clinics 10 years from now.
Thank you for listening.
