Brief History of Standardization of Korean Terminology in the Field of Pathology

Shin, Yeon Lim

Abstract

An in other medical fields in Korea, the terminology in pathology has to go through a long adaptation period since the liberation from Japan in 1945. The Korean Society of Pathologists (KSP) has been the driving force in establishing and adopting new pathology terms in Korean. This effort started from the time when the KSP launched the Korean Journal of Pathology in 1965, and was activated by the momentum of publishing its pathology textbook for the medical students first in Korea in 1990. The KSP organized the Terminology Standardization Committee in close collaboration with the Termonology Standardization Committee of the Korean Medical Association (KMA). The product of joint works was the third edition of Korean Medical Termonology Dictionary published by the KMA in 1992. Since then, the Termonology Standardization Committee of the KSP has continued to improve many inappropriate terms into more easily understandable ones based on the guideline. The guideline of the KSP is basically same to that proposed and adopted by the KMA. Pathology terms are expected to improve further to be standardized as the Pathology Textbook Committee of the KSP is in process of publishing the 5th edition. In the future, the KSP should be ready to establish and standardize the medical terminology in the pathology field since so many new vocabularies are coming into use in this rapidly changing medical environment.