“Saving lives, that is our job.”
The struggle of nameless people who do not want to lose a single life

This is a record of life and death written by Professor Lee Guk-jong, a trauma surgeon.
The author has been documenting the harsh realities, anguish, reflections, and concerns about the medical system he has faced as a trauma surgeon for 17 years.
The writings, sometimes short and sometimes long, were known to some media outlets as the 'Igokjong Bimanrok'.
The record was polished and refined over a long period of time, published in two volumes (Volume 1, 2002-2013, Volume 2, 2013-2018), and has returned to readers in a revised edition in 2024.
In this 2024 revised edition, the biographies previously included in Volume 2 have been revised and relocated to the latter half of Volume 1.
Professor Lee Guk-jong's "Golden Hour" is a sobering report on the reality of severe trauma medical care in South Korea, and a historical record that captures the struggles of those who have struggled to save lives—medical staff, firefighters, soldiers, and others—even in a system that is not functioning.


Volume 1 depicts the process of setting foot in the trauma surgery department, despairing at the harsh medical reality he encountered, and finally establishing his own standards for what an international standard trauma center should be like while training at trauma centers in the United States and the United Kingdom.
The film depicts various aspects of our world, including the poignant feelings of medical staff, patients, and guardians in critical situations where life and death are at stake, the difficult lives of manual laborers constantly exposed to the risk of accidents, domestic violence, and organized crime.
Above all, it describes the whole story of the Captain Seok Project, which rescued and resuscitated Captain Seok, who was injured during Operation Dawn in the Gulf of Aden, as well as the reality of South Korea's medical system, which failed to make the most of this valuable opportunity despite creating a groundbreaking turning point in the severe trauma treatment system amidst national attention, in a calm tone that suppresses sadness.


In Volume 2, the author depicts the struggles of the university hospital he worked at after being designated as a regional trauma center, despite facing many twists and turns, in a medical reality that falls far short of international standards.

Patients with severe trauma were brought from semi-general hospitals to university hospitals, and those who could not be accepted by university hospitals were pushed out and sent back to semi-general hospitals.
Patients were always coming and going.
As patients who had been pushed out of the university hospital headed back to the general hospital, some died, and those who had lost their lives were taken to the morgue.
That was the final destination.
The fact that they no longer had to wander between hospitals in agony while still alive might have been a comfort to the deceased, but the cries of the survivors were heartbreakingly sad.
--- p.88

Among surgeons who were overly obsessed with trauma surgery or jumped into the field with high expectations from a young age, there were surprisingly many who dropped out.
This field is one that can only be sustained if you start without high expectations.
The miraculous saving of a patient with a single surgery and receiving praise from their guardians only exists in movies.
In reality, the job of a trauma surgeon is to examine patients with long, tedious breaths, and to endure the most miserable reality while doing so.

--- p.126

It's a resource.
That's a very plausible statement.
I was curious about the source of that saying.
As I chewed on that word, I pondered the meaning of resources as a member of an organization.
The orders to take on risky tasks from above sometimes disguised themselves as resources within the organization, and they even imposed their own will.
Strapping bombs to your body and running into enemy territory isn't something that only happens on the battlefield.
I couldn't tell if the five dead crew members had truly volunteered for the flight or not.
The cause of the crash remained unknown for several days.

--- p.177

In Korean society, you have to know how to step back at an appropriate point.
I didn't have the courage to give up halfway and I didn't know how.
The Gyeonggi Southern Regional Trauma Center was like a baby just learning to walk, like a thin glass that would shatter if touched.
Each and every rejected payment was so crucial to the operation of the center that we could not back down.
I was not a person fit for Korean society.

--- pp.186~187

The street was sunny.
The sunlight was nice even in the late afternoon, but the difference in brightness on the left and right made me dizzy.
I closed my left eye.
The sunlight was so bright that it blinded my right eye.
I closed my right eye.
It was dark.
Now I can clearly feel the difference in vision between my two eyes.
Yet, I never thought, 'What if I had gone to the ophthalmologist instead of taking off my goggles?'
It was something that was expected.

--- p.240

Blood was oozing throughout the abdominal cavity and the retroperitoneal cavity.
Bleeding also occurred in the right lobe of the liver.
Blood spurted out and swirled, covering the shattered liver lobe and rising up onto the Kent blade.
The bleeding area was large and the amount of bleeding was excessive.
The number of hemostatic agents we had was not enough.
The styptic that had barely been applied fell away like autumn leaves amidst the gushing blood.
Behind the ruptured liver, the hepatic vein suddenly widens and joins the abdominal vena cava.
From there, it will be impossible to completely repair the enlarged ruptured hepatic vein.
The place to dig was wide and deep, but there was almost no room to recover and come out alive after digging in.

--- p.297

During flight, when the wind was strong enough, it would whip around the AW-139 and the aircraft would roar.
It also seemed as if the AW-139 was trying to fly to the hospital as quickly as possible when the patient's condition worsened while being treated inside the cabin above the sky.
The sound the rotor made as it cut through the wind was sometimes loud enough to overcome the wind, and at other times it sounded like it was struggling with great exhaustion.
Medical staff and patients depended on helicopters for their lives, so for us, it was not just a means of transportation.

--- p.336

In stark contrast to this reality, the new government has set out to improve the 'quality of life.'
All kinds of policies were introduced.
The government's policy direction also influenced trauma centers.
The working hours of dedicated nurses, who fill the gap in the work of doctors who are absolutely insufficient, have also been limited to 52 hours per week.
An outrageous policy of limiting working hours without increasing the number of employees.
This was a huge blow to the center's operations.
I felt sick at the thought of my situation, barely able to survive by going against the grain of the world.

--- p.375

I looked closely at my father's name engraved on the stone monument.
I gently brushed the corner of the stone monument with my fingertips.
The sunlight that touched the roof was not hot.
How far and where should I go?
Father had no answer.
The place where he lay looked peaceful.
I was envious of my father's place in eternal rest.
But my end will not be far away.
It was a sad and vain thing, but since most of the days I lived were not perfect, that fact didn't seem so bad.

--- p.385