Background
: Recently, the legal and ethical issues relative to euthanasia are becoming controversial in Korea. This study was designed to verify the differences of the attitudes on euthanasia between judicial apprentices and residents.

Methods : The questionnaire was conducted on the 35th-group of the judicial apprentices on March 24, 2004, and on the residents from April 2 to May 22, 2004. The respondents were 636 in total consisting of 460 judicial apprentices and 176 residents.

Results : Of the total 636 subjects, 373 (81.1%) of the judicial apprentices and 149 (84.7%) of residents agreed that allowing euthanasia is moral, without any significant difference (P＞0.05). The number of residents was greater (59 people, 33.5%) than that of judicial apprentices (112 people, 24.4%) who agreed with active euthanasia (P＜0.05). Among the total, 397 (86.3%) of the judicial apprentices and 160 (91.4%) of the residents answered that the law for euthanasia was necessary, without any significant difference (P＞0.05). But, among these supporters, the respondents who agreed on active euthanasia were significantly different in number between judicial apprentices (n=93, 23.4%) and residents (n=54, 33.8%) (P＜0.05).

Conclusion : This study did not find any significant differences between the two groups in the necessity of the law for euthanasia, but the rate of agreement on active euthanasia was higher in residents group than in judicial apprentices group.

Background
: Medical decisions concerning the prolongation of life. the right to die and euthanasia are among the most extensively discussed issues within medicine and law today. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the attitudes of medical of students and housestaff toward euthanasia.

Methods : From July 15 to september 15 of the 1998, the responses of 180 medical students and 132 housestaff to a self-adbministered questionnaire were analyzed to identify attitudes toward euthanasia. Over 312 respondents about attitudes toward euthanasia, the analysis of differences between proportions was made by the Chi-square test.

Results : About 69.9% of the respondents thought euthanasia should be legalized. The findings suggest that Buddhists (77.5%) and non-religious groups (88.1%) tend to support euthanasia more than Christians. Futhermore, medical students (74.4%) support euthanasia more than housestaffs(63.6%), male(75.1%) more often than female(57.9%). about 73.1% of the respondents said that active euthanasia is not justifiable, and 79.2% said that they do not like performing active euthanasia. In respect to passive euthanasia, 69.0% said that it is not ethically justifiable, but 63.0% would perform this as if it were legal. Housestaffs of internal medicine (76.9%) were more willing to do euthanasia than pediatrics (70.0%), surgery (63.6%), family practice (53.8%) and Ob/Gyn(33.3%).

Conclusion : Respondents have positive attitudes toward legalization of euthanasia.. Most considered that passive euthanasia is not morally justifiable. But if it were legalized, they would still be disturbed by active euthanasia. The opinions of physician and medical students directly affect patient care and their attitudes must be considered if clear plicies are to be developed concerning euthanasia.