Doctors who saved our nation

It is generally accepted that medical doctor is a profession far from the political activities. However, there is an old saying that a great doctor cures a country while a small doctor cures a patient. This saying reveals that doctor's curing activities were not strictly limited to curing a patient's physical diseases. In fact, it is not difficult to find doctors who dedicated themselves for curing diseased countries. Sun Yat-sen, the first president and founding father of the Republic of China, was the exemplary figure of the great doctor who cured the nation. When Japanese colonized Korea, many doctors dedicated themselves to liberation activities. Some of them moved to Manchuria, China and even Mongol to continue their struggle against Japanese rule. Medical students were at the front line of the March first movement in 1919 which was a nationwide protest movement against Japanese unjustified occupation of Korea. During the Korean war, a doctor called Hyun Bong Hak saved the lives of more than 100,000 refugees by transporting them from Hungnam harbor to Koje island. And Chang Ki Ryeo opened a free clinic in Busan to take care of the refugees gathered there. The lives of those great doctors of yesterday invite us to reflect our lives as a doctor today.

Historical Review of Park Myungja, very Pioneering and Creative Registered Nurse who winned the Florence Nightingale Medal / 한국간호교육학회지

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to present a model for R.N. and nursing students. METHODS: Main primary sources were certificates, writings, news and articles. On the basis of them, her life was described over time and analyzed on the secondary sources. RESULTS: Park Myungja faced Korean War as a nursing student and became the military officer of nursing. In 1950s and 1960s she worked hard to improve the operation room nursing. And she devoted herself to improve nursing education and help her students. Park Myungja became a military training teacher in 1972 and included first aid with the military training course. As a researcher of Korean National Open University, she tried to develop a course that R.N.s can receive a bachelor's degree in Nursing. Her last formal career was the head of a middle school, and she established the first nursery facility for the teachers. After the retirement, she devoted herself to the volunteer works, especially such as the hospice care, free clothes making, and Taichi teaching to arthritis patients. CONCLUSION: Park's life has been that of a R.N and volunteer. She has been very creative to find what she could do and pioneering to accomplish them.

Effective Population Size of Korean Populations

Recently, new methods have been developed for estimating the current and recent changes in effective population sizes. Based on the methods, the effective population sizes of Korean populations were estimated using data from the Korean Association Resource (KARE) project. The overall changes in the population sizes of the total populations were similar to CHB (Han Chinese in Beijing, China) and JPT (Japanese in Tokyo, Japan) of the HapMap project. There were no differences in past changes in population sizes with a comparison between an urban area and a rural area. Age-dependent current and recent effective population sizes represent the modern history of Korean populations, including the effects of World War II, the Korean War, and urbanization. The oldest age group showed that the population growth of Koreans had already been substantial at least since the end of the 19th century.

Parasitic Diseases as the Cause of Death of Prisoners of War during the Korean War (1950-1953)

To determine the cause of death of prisoners of war during the Korean War (1950-1953), death certificates or medical records were analyzed. Out of 7,614 deaths, 5,013 (65.8%) were due to infectious diseases. Although dysentery and tuberculosis were the most common infectious diseases, parasitic diseases had caused 14 deaths: paragonimiasis in 5, malaria in 3, amoebiasis in 2, intestinal parasitosis in 2, ascariasis in 1, and schistosomiasis in 1. These results showed that paragonimiasis, malaria, and amoebiasis were the most fatal parasitic diseases during the early 1950s in the Korean Peninsula. Since schistosomiasis is not endemic to Korea, it is likely that the infected private soldier moved from China or Japan to Korea.

Causes of Death of Prisoners of War during the Korean War (1950-1953)

PURPOSE: This study aimed at analyzing the causes of death of prisoners of war (POWs) during the Korean War (1950-1953) who fought for the Communist side (North Korea and the People's Republic of China). In 1998, the United States Department of Defense released new information about the prisoners including, 7,614 deaths of the POW during the Korean War. The data on the causes of death of the POWs during the Korean War provides valuable information on the both the public health and history of the conflict. MATERIALS AND METHODS: To analyze the causes of death of the POWs, we classified the clinical diagnosis and findings on 7,614 deaths into 22 chapters, as outlined in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems-10th Revision (ICD-10). Second, we traced changes in the monthly death totals of POWs as well as deaths caused by common infectious diseases and external causes of death including injury over time from August 1950 to September 1953. RESULTS: The most common category of causes of deaths of POWs was infectious disease, 5,013 (65.8%) out of 7,614 deaths, followed by external causes including injury, 817 (10.7%). Overall, tuberculosis and dysentery/diarrhea were the most common causes of death. Deaths caused by acute and chronic infection, or external causes showed different patterns of increases and decline over time during the Korean War. CONCLUSION: The information and data on POWs' deaths during the Korean War reflects the critical impact of the POWs' living conditions and the effect of public health measures implemented in POW camps during the war.

The Medical Assistance of Swedish Red Cross Field Hospital in Busan during and after the Korean War / 의사학

After the outbreak of the Korean war, the Kingdom of Sweden, a permanent neutral nation, dispatched the Swedish Red Cross Field Hospital(SRCFH) instead of armed forces for humanitarian support to the allied forces in South Korea. The Hospital consisted of about 170 Swedes, all volunteers. From the early part of the Korean War, SRCFH took part in the medical assistance in Busan. When the frontline advanced to northern Korea, the number of inflowing casualties to this field hospital decreased. At that time, earnest medical aid for civilians commenced, and many Koreans were treated in available beds in SRCFH. After the armistice in July 1953, SRCFH became the Swedish Hospital in Busan, serving not only the military but also civilians, and continued its humanitarian mission until April 1957 for the Korean who were suffering from a collapsed medical system inthe midst of war. When the Hospital returned to Sweden, it had treated over two million patients from twenty countries, including wounded UN allied force, Korean (south and north), Chinese prisoner of war and Korean civilian. Moreover, it left a transformative legacy, the National Medical Center in Seoul which was established in collaboration with other Scandinavian countries who dispatched medical assistance during the Korean War.

Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome: Historical Aspects / 의사학

A mysterious disease was first reported from Korea when it had been observed during late spring 1951 in UN Forces operating in the central area close to the 38th parallel. The disease showed distinctive features which included high fever, low blood pressure, hemorrhagic tendency and acute renal failure. Historically it was apparently a similar disease to a clinical entity designated as Epidemic hemorrhagic fever in Manchuria or Hemorrhagic nephrosonephritis in Far Eastern Russia. After Lee Ho-Wang succeeded in demonstrating Hantaan virus which caused hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS), many studies has revealed various biological and epidemiological aspects of the disease. But the origin of the disease in Korea still remains unknown. This article tests some hypotheses which explain the origin of the disease and reviews the relation between the Korean War and HFRS. It is concluded that the emerging of HFRS would be closely related with the establishment of the munitions supply network in early 1951 in Chinese troop.

Individual Identification of Human Remains from the Korean War / 대한법의학회지

During the exhumation of victims of Korean War, among the memorial activities of Korean War, we found a dead body in a tomb in Kyung-Ju city. With the testimony of natives we could find the family related with the body. Using bone and teeth of it we determined that it was male and about 20 years old or more and the result was unite with the insistence of the bereaved family. With the photography offered by the family and the skull we did the photographic superimposition and according to the result we could not exclude that it was the same person with him. We performed mitochondrial DNA(mtDNA) sequencing and it reveals that the dead body and the family have same maternal inherited mtDNA. Finally, We could identify the dead body. At present it is very difficult thing to collect much data of victims of Korean War because it passed over 50 years. But if we find the bereaved family of them we can identify them more accurate and more objective with the forensic identification method like sex determination, age estimation, superimposition and mtDNA sequencing and so on.