VOL.72/2024.07

 

A Doctor’s “Health Book” on Diagnosis and
Care for What Ails Korean Society Today

Healthy Bookstore Manager’s Pick

 

2024.07.01

 

 

“I see the limitations of modern medicine almost every day as a physician. No matter how advanced medical science gets, it will never be omnipotent.” This is the story of an 80-year-old practicing physician I met in a bookstore a few years ago. It was somewhat surprising to hear a senior doctor with nearly 60 years of clinical and research experience at a medical school comment on the limitations of modern medicine. It was not only that: many of the doctors I met through books in my bookstore were concerned with narratives that extend beyond numbers, towards society outside the small clinic. That is how I came to realize that our health and healthy lives are created through a holistic approach, not on an individual scale. Here, I would like to introduce 2 books by doctors who ponder a healthy Korean society.

 

 

Korea’s access to healthcare is ranked among the highest among OECD countries. However, it is interesting to note that while the number of hospital beds per capita is one of the highest in the world as well as the quality of healthcare organizations, the number of doctors is below the OECD average. How does Korea achieve such high accessibility with a small medical workforce? The answer is extreme efficiency. In Korea, a patient typically spends less than three minutes with a doctor in an office, and a variety of tests make up for the short clinic sessions.

 

 

Yang Chang-Mo, who wrote In a World Where Pain Greets Us (Hanibook), is a house call doctor, something fewer than 1% of Korean doctors are. House call doctors are those who are on the opposite side of the medical efficiency that Korean healthcare prides itself on, walking up and down the twisty roads to see patients who don’t have easy access to hospitals. This book documents what the author learned as he left his tiny office and went over the doorsteps of elderly people’s homes more than 600 times. He says that through his journey, he realized that a good doctor is one who understands the lives of his patients, and that the better he understands their lives, the better he understands their illnesses. He adds that there was a sick society behind the ill bodies he has been treating across the alleys.
As the house calls are mainly for the elderly, the book’s detailed representation of the world of unrecognized illness and the lives of the old and sick is also impressive. Here, we can seek wisdom for a better community and a healthier society.

 

 

Even though it’s a time when we are worried about the loss of jobs due to AI, overwork and burnout are still serious problems. Burnout is a newly added cause (factor) of disease in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). It is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “a syndrome caused by chronic workplace stress that is not successfully managed.” Korean society, which values “hard work” as the highest value and pursues constant competition, is also not free from burnout. Regarding this, the book What Did I Do to Get Burned Out? (Changbi Publishers) written by Dr. Ahn Joo-Yeun, a psychiatrist who has been actively communicating with young people through podcasts and radio, diagnoses the problem of burnout among young Koreans.

 

 

The title of the book, “What did I do to get burned out?” is the most common question the author hears in her clinic. Ahn says that in order to improve the problem of burnout in Korean society, we need to change the social atmosphere to one where burnout is not something that requires qualifications or standards. She suggests changing the organizational culture to ensure everyone has the time and attitude to care for themselves. To do this, she has been giving lectures on employees’ mental health to companies. In addition to practical information on how to deal with burnout, you will also find “heartfelt” accounts of a young doctor trying to solve the mental health problems of Korean society.

 

 

---

Written by Kim Min-Jung (Manager of healthy bookstore “11ho1”)