Reporter
Medical Insights Korea
James Choi covers Korean healthcare broadly for Medical Insights Korea, ranging across hospital medicine, health policy, and the clinical specialties, and reporting from primary material rather than from secondary accounts of it.
News · Thyroid
Higher-income Koreans were screened more, diagnosed more and suffered more surgical complications. Lower-income Koreans died more. When the country stopped over-screening, the higher-income group stopped first.
James Choi6 min read
News · Thyroid
The paper reported thyroid cancer-specific mortality rising from 0.76 to 2.70 per 1,000 person-years. The national registry's reply says that is a case fatality rate, and that population mortality fell from 1.06 to 0.80 per 100,000 over almost the same period.
James Choi6 min read
News · Gallbladder
Korea removes three times as many gallbladders as it did fifteen years ago. This is what the published evidence establishes about that operation, and where it runs out.
James Choi8 min read
News · Gallbladder
Cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, depression: study after study from the National Health Insurance Service reports raised risk after cholecystectomy. In the two that separated early risk from late, the excess was concentrated in the first years and then disappeared.
James Choi7 min read
News · Gallbladder
Nationwide insurance data shows the age-standardised rate rising from 67.7 to 211.4 per 100,000. Its authors name increasing computed tomography use as a probable primary cause.
James Choi5 min read