Application of sex/gender-specific medicine in healthcare.

Abstract

The study of differences between men and women in medicine is referred to as “sex/gender-specific medicine” (SGM) and is crucial in medical practice. In 2021, I published the Korean version of Sex/ Gender-Specific Medicine in the Gastrointestinal Diseases [1], and its English version [2] was published by Springer, a top-tier publisher, in 2022. This book has been recognized as a textbook that systematizes the concept of SGM and may be the first medical book related to SGM in South Korea (hereafter, Korea). When I first introduced the concept of SGM to acquaintances, I remember they searched Google with awkward facial expressions, thinking it referred to research on sexual minorities. Thus, SGM is not yet universally known in Korea. My interest in SGM began in 2014 when I participated in the Gendered Innovation Workshop between Stanford University and the Korean Federation of Women’s Science and Technology Associations (KOFWST). While assisting Professor Mi-Kyung Sung from the Department of Food and Nutrition at Sookmyung Women’s University with her presentation on colorectal cancer from a clinical perspective, I became interested in SGM in colorectal cancer. Subsequently, in 2013, I began researching SGM earnestly as a participant in the Korean Center for Gendered Innovations for Science and Technology Research (GISTeR) established under KOFWST. In 2016, I was able to conduct balanced research on both basic and clinical SGM as a participant in the “Promoting Excellence and Practicability of Science and Technology Research through Gendered Innovation” project of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning. The “Sex and Gender Research in Medical Science” classes held in 2017 and 2019 at the Graduate School of Translational Medicine at Seoul National University College of Medicine received positive feedback from medical students. Later, Sex/Gender-Specific Medicine in Clinical Areas was published [3] with 33 experts in each clinical area. In this paper, I aim to review the concept and necessity of SGM and the challenges and implications it presents to healthcare, practitioners, researchers, and students within the sex/gender-specific framework.