"Protecting the Severe Trauma Center as if Walking Along Prison Walls..."

[In Crisis: Regional Trauma Centers] Professor Heo Yoonjung of Dankook University Hospital Publishes 'Because I Want to Save Lives Again'
"Enduring with a sense of duty despite the lack of junior doctors"
"Wrongful judicial decisions must not be made on best-effort medical outcomes"

"Accidents never stop, and there is always a shortage of personnel... Trauma center doctors must make the fastest and most rational decisions when receiving emergency patients, navigating life-and-death moments, performing surgeries, and aiding recovery. Yet, there are patients who suddenly come to mind during a bus ride to work or just before falling asleep in bed, whose images stubbornly linger in my mind."

Professor Heo Yoon-jung, Chungnam Regional Trauma Center, Dankook University Hospital. Provided by Dankook University Hospital

On the 16th, Professor Heo Yoon-jung (37) of Dankook University Hospital’s Chungnam Regional Trauma Center, who recently published the essay 'Because I Want to Save Lives Again,' told an Asia Economy reporter, "I wanted to keep remembering the patients who passed through my hands by writing down the thoughts and emotions I experienced while saving lives or pronouncing death several times a day."

Professor Heo has dreamed of becoming a trauma surgeon since her school days. After graduating from the College of Pharmacy, she went through medical school and four years of surgical residency, then underwent further training to become a trauma surgery specialist. She chose Dankook University Hospital’s Regional Trauma Center with the determination to learn properly in a place with many patients.

Located in Cheonan, Chungnam, Dankook University Hospital is adjacent to the Gyeongbu Expressway, with industrial complexes toward the West Coast and agricultural fields scattered around. It is a place overflowing with trauma patients from large-scale traffic accidents, industrial accidents such as falls, machinery entrapment, amputations, and farm equipment accidents caused by overturned tillers or tractors. Sometimes, victims arrive battered from assaults or injuries, and there are situations where patients who attempted self-harm or suicide must be revived. In any case, trauma center doctors must focus solely on saving the patient, making the fastest decisions, and acting swiftly. Dankook University Hospital’s trauma center had senior doctors deeply committed to severe trauma treatment, from whom she learned how to become a surgeon.

Professor Heo said, "Among the patients transferred to the trauma center, few are economically wealthy or living stable lives. Seeing people’s bodies and lives shattered repeatedly by traffic accidents and similar industrial disasters over the years made me think I should inform more people about this reality." Therefore, his book contains poignant and heartrending stories: patients who suffer unexpected accidents in familiar workplaces daily but are not recognized for industrial accidents and must worry about medical expenses and livelihood; the burden of breadwinners who had to return to dangerous work sites despite knowing the risks; the heartbreaking stories of bereaved families crying in front of a patient’s death; and the regrets and apologies toward young lives lost before they could even bloom. He confesses that he was able to endure and persevere in such a war-like trauma center because he believed that saving one patient and maintaining their family, treating people while also healing social maladies, was his mission as a doctor.

Professor Heo Yoon-jeong of Dankook University Hospital is being interviewed about patient treatment conducted at the Severe Trauma Center. Photo by Jo In-kyung

However, no matter how capable the trauma center is, the doctors here are not exempt from the heavy workload of eight 24-hour shifts per month and 36 consecutive hours of work. Trauma surgery is a field where one must have the utmost mental and physical strength while facing death daily, with the highest labor intensity but woefully inadequate treatment, causing the number of applicants to decline every year and making it a place where one cannot work without a strong sense of duty. Professor Heo hinted, "Since I joined in 2020, no junior trauma surgeons have joined our center."

Unfortunately, the medical-policy conflict caused by the controversy over medical school quotas has pushed both patients and doctors into harsher environments. Over the past year, some regional trauma centers have increasingly transferred accident patients to trauma centers in distant areas because they could not handle the cases. The infrastructure for transporting and treating severe patients has largely collapsed. For example, Dankook University Hospital’s trauma center used to receive about 2,300 patients annually but saw that number plummet to around 1,370 last year. After the collective resignation of residents, when trauma patients occur in departments lacking personnel, even if the 119 emergency dispatch center contacts them, patient admission itself has become impossible. Professor Heo said, "Even before the medical crisis, we played a backup role for other trauma centers in the surrounding areas with reduced functions. Patients we could not even admit were likely transported somewhere where they could not receive final treatment and either died or were left with severe disabilities."

The social atmosphere of rampant criminal punishment and civil and criminal lawsuits for medical malpractice is also making doctors more hesitant. Recently, the medical community was shocked by a ruling ordering an anesthesiology resident to pay 440 million won in damages for a patient who died during emergency treatment for a subdural hematoma caused by dating violence. The resident was held responsible for negligence during central venous catheter insertion. Professor Heo pointed out, "It was probably an unavoidable medical accident that occurred during emergency surgery to save a critically ill patient. Although I have repeatedly explained why doctors avoid essential departments, this wrongful judicial decision has hammered another nail in the coffin." She emphasized, "Every moment I worked as a trauma center doctor, I felt like I was walking on a prison wall. If I could focus solely on saving lives without such risks, and if good-faith, best-effort medical results were not punished even if outcomes were poor, more medical professionals would return to essential medical fields."