Kyeok Boo Han, whose pen name was “Sa Seok,” was born in Jeongpyeong-gun, Hamgyeongnam-do, Korea, in 1913 (Fig. 1). He left Korea to study in Japan at the age of 13 and graduated from Tokyo Prefectural 4th Middle School. However, due to financial problems, he gave up further study and returned to Korea in 1933 to enroll as a pre-medical student at the College of Medicine of Keijo Imperial University (now Seoul National University Medical College), where he graduated in 1941.

Figure 1. Professor Kyeok Boo Han, who performed the first pericarditis surgery case in South Korea (1913–2005).

After graduating from Keijo Imperial University, Han worked at the Second Department of Surgery, having been officially appointed as a paid assistant, and had a strong reputation as a promising doctor. During the chaotic time of liberation from Japan in 1945, he played a major role as an acting hospital director during the takeover period from the Japanese. On August 14, 1945, while he was assisting his senior doctor Eung-gyu Kim at his private hospital with a hernia operation, he heard that Japan would surrender the following day. The next morning, he went to the Department of Medicine at Keijo Imperial University and secretly contacted his peers in each class to inform them that Japan would surrender today, and he worked with his classmates to maintain order in the hospital.

After the establishment of Seoul National University in 1946, Han was appointed an assistant professor of General Surgery at Seoul National University Hospital and commenced his studies in the field of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery. One of his fellow professors asked Prof. Han why he chose thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, which had such low pay and many hardships. Han answered, “Even if it is such a challenging field that nobody pays attention to, someone must do it. For this reason, I made up my mind to sacrifice myself for others and to specialize in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery.” At that time, he created his pen name “Sa Seok,” meaning “abandoned stone,” keeping in mind that “I will throw myself away like a stone [1].”

As an assistant professor at Seoul National University, Han delivered a presentation on a surgical case of adhesive pericarditis at the first academic meeting of the Chosun (Korea) Medical Association held at the auditorium of the College of Medicine at Seoul National University in May 1947 [2]. It was the first presentation about a thoracic surgical case made by a Korean surgeon, and this was published in 1948 in the first issue of the Chosun Medical Association’s journal [3].

After fleeing to Busan during the Korean War in 1953, Prof. Han became the Head of the Thoracic Surgery Department at the Swedish Red Cross Hospital in Busan, which was well equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment and excellent treatment facilities. According to his recollections, in 1954, he performed 13 cases of esophageal surgery, 1 case of mediastinal surgery, and 245 cases of pulmonary and pleural operations [1]. During the evacuation period in Busan, he played a key role in the establishment of the College of Medicine of Busan National University and devoted himself to training students for 2 years beginning in 1954 as the department head of pre- medical courses at Busan National University.

Han had an opportunity to study at the Crafoord Laboratory of Karolinska Medical University in Sweden and at the Royal Chest Center in England for a year and a half in 1956. Han would recall that Swedish and European hospitals were like the “dream center of learning.” His passion for knowledge led him to study hospital management at Korea University’s Graduate School of Business in 1967. In a later interview, he said “Learning is a lifelong process, which can create yourself anew. I think we should not stop learning, especially in our thoracic and cardiovascular surgical field, until we die.”

When the National Medical Center (established by the Scandinavian countries) was opened in 1959, he was appointed as the head of the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, and served in this role for 2 years. He also published a paper titled “Recent trend of the pulmo-cardiac surgery” and “The advantages of the thoracoplasty” (Fig. 2) [4,5]. In 1960, he opened a private clinic called “Han Kyeok Boo General Surgery Clinic” to help patients suffering from thoracic diseases, where he treated patients until 1979. Due to his earlier interest and pioneering work in the thoracic surgery field, he was elected as the first president of the Korean Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery in 1968.

Figure 2. The first pages of 2 articles published by Prof. Han in 1959 in The New Medical Journal.

In addition to his academic achievements as a cardiothoracic surgeon, he realized that there was too much distrust towards the medical community and too many factors threatening medical rights. In 1959, he established the Seodaemun District Medical Association and served as its first president. He also served as the president of the Seoul Medical Association (1962–1964) and the 20th (1970–1972) and 23rd (1976–1979) president of the Korean Medical Association. He made significant contributions to the protection of doctors’ rights and the development of the Korean Medical Association during his presidency. In recognition of his achievements, he was awarded the National Moran Medal, the Order of Civil Merit, in 1978 (Fig. 3). After resigning the presidency of the Korean Medical Association, he began visiting a municipal nursing home located in Sanggye-dong village to provide medical services. When the municipal nursing home moved to another location, he established the Municipal Elderly Nursing Home in 1983 at that place and continued his medical services for approximately 20 years. In addition, even while facing his own health problems in old age, Prof. Han donated 500 million Korean won to the Department of Thoracic Surgery at Seoul National University where he had worked, and he also made donations to the Korean Medical Association (Fig. 4).

Figure 3. Prof. Han with his wife, Mrs. Gwibun Kang, as he was awarded the National Moran Medal, the Order of Civil Merit, in 1978.

Figure 4. Dr. Kyeok Boo Han, the honorary chairman of the Korean Medical Association, who is considered the pioneer of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery in South Korea, donated 500 million KRW for the development of thoracic surgery to the Medical College at Seoul National University.

In his 90s, he published a book titled “What Sa-Seok is left with at 90 years of age”. In this book, he recalled an episode about Professor Young-Gyun Lee, who performed the first open-heart surgery using a cardiopulmonary bypass in Korea [1]:

“Dr. Lee first studied neurosurgery but later switched to thoracic and cardiovascular surgery. At the Swedish Red Cross Hospital in Busan, Dr. Ki-Ryeo Jang performed surgery on Dr. Lee’s mandible. At that time, Dr. Lee asked my opinion about him going to Minnesota, USA to study cardiovascular surgery with the support of the Minnesota Plan at Seoul National University. I strongly recommended that he should accept it. In this way or another, doctors started to learn thoracic and cardiovascular surgery one by one.”

Yi-Hyeok Kwon, a junior colleague of Prof. Han’s and the former minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, remembered him as follows:

“Kyeok Boo Han is one of my senior colleagues whom I respect the most. After the liberation from Japan, he served as an assistant professor at the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Seoul National University College of Medicine. As a senior faculty member, Han had an excellent reputation concerning his capabilities and was known to his students as an extraordinary professor. … However, the primary reason to respect him more than anyone else is his unpaid medical service projects for homeless seniors. Faith, courage, and perseverance are prerequisites for working with isolated and disadvantaged seniors, and he is equipped with all 3 of them.” (December 11, 1997, Medical Newspaper)

Author contributions

Conceptualization: JWC, KYP, KHK. Data curation: JWC. Methodology: JWC, KYP. Writing–original draft: JWC. Writing–review & editing: KYP, KHK. Final approval of the manuscript: all authors.

Conflict of interest

Jae Woong Choi is an editorial board member of the journal but was not involve in the peer reviewer selection, evaluation, or decision process of this article. No other potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.