Regional trauma centers struggle on the border between life and death.
The Life and Thoughts of Trauma Surgeon Dr. Moon Yoon-soo
Strongly recommended by Lee Nak-jun, the author of Netflix's "Trauma Center"!

A regional trauma center struggling on the border between life and death.
The author, a trauma surgeon there, runs marathons.
I think while running and write in my head.
Although I can't write directly by holding a pen or typing on a keyboard, I keep thinking about something in my mind while running.
You might reflect on overeating at a fancy restaurant the day before, or praise yourself for tying your shoelaces and leaving the house today.
Of course, the ones who take up the most are the patients I meet at the hospital.

A patient who was unfairly involved in a traffic accident, underwent multiple surgeries, and is suffering in the intensive care unit.
I also look back and see if the treatments, surgeries, and words I gave to patients yesterday and today met my standards.
Sometimes, I try to think about what I would want to hear from the doctor and how I would be treated if I were the patient.
As I was thinking about this and that, before I knew it, my body was drenched in sweat.
I feel out of breath, thirsty, and exhausted, and I feel like I can't run anymore.
But once you get over that short hurdle, at some point you'll experience what's called a "runner's high," where your legs don't hurt or feel heavy at all.
From then on, many moments of gratitude come to mind, and with that gratitude, things I need to do better in the future naturally come to mind one by one.

This book is a collection of thoughts that the author, a trauma surgeon, heard while running a marathon.
If you feel too tired while running, just stop and drink some cool water to catch your breath.
But in a regional trauma center, a patient rushing toward death cannot stop himself on his own.
Instead, we need to delay that time even a little and help them change their direction to the path of life rather than death.
Such a process is always difficult, scary, and arduous.
It is a battle against time itself that ordinary people cannot even dare to imagine.
Moreover, the weight of responsibility for treatment is so immense that the author mocks himself, saying he lives in a "high-risk, low-return reality."
However, he said that the patient whose heart is beating in front of him now was not saved by the medics alone, but by the patient and his family working together to treat him with the earnest hope that he would have a better day.


This book contains his love and warmth for his patients, the agony he feels in the face of life, the rewards and joy he experiences in the process, and even the gloom and sadness of not being able to prevent death.


The author experiences countless emotions that are not often felt in ordinary daily life at the regional trauma center.
The author says, "The job of a trauma surgeon is to give patients the strength to overcome."
He learns and is moved every day by the patients who, at times miraculously, survive wonderfully at the crossroads of life and death.
And while running, sometimes at the hospital, seeing patients at 2 a.m., I compiled the thoughts and feelings I had into “The Only Thing That Made Me Grow Was People.”
The author says that he thinks of patients who gave him courage and hope more often than those who made it difficult for him to run.
On every page of this book, episodes of fierce battles between patients and their families unfold with urgency, as if they were scenes from a movie or drama.


From the surgery on an emergency patient brought in at midnight, to the miraculous recovery story of a patient who was transferred with nine sheets of gauze in his stomach, to the intense recovery process of a patient who seemed hopeless after being crushed under two tons of steel bars, to the story of a young patient who was inevitably declared brain dead but saved six lives through organ donation, to the story of a pitiful foreign worker patient who fought alone in a foreign land and overcame death, the tension and miraculous stories you feel with each page you read, and the episodes that will bring tears to your eyes with regret and sorrow, will leave a lasting impression on our hearts, enough to make you forget the hefty length of the book, which is 404 pages.


Ordinary people mistakenly believe that trauma surgeons are only people like Baek Kang-hyeok and Kim Sa-bu who appear in dramas.
We know of the existence of trauma surgeons who silently stand guard and try to save at least one more patient, but we do not pay proper attention to them.
I hope you remember that there are trauma surgeons, like the author of this book, who hold each and every severely traumatized patient in their hearts and write short essays, rather than doctors who are like celebrities.
《It was only people who helped me grow》 is not just about the patients seen in numbers, but the result of the patient's heart and tears passing through the author's mind and heart.
It is not a chronicle of the end of a trauma patient's life, but rather a life journey that calmly contains the earnest wish of a trauma surgeon to save at least one more person.
At the end of the year, I dedicate this book to those who want to know about life, its weight and piety, and to those who need comfort and courage.

It's hard to explain in one word or one sentence, but it's the feeling you get when you see a dying person or someone whose heart has stopped beating, and then a few days later, without anyone knowing when it happened, alive and well and talking.
After the patient who gave me this vital energy has recovered, I speak to him briefly.
"Patient! Did you have a good time meeting the Grim Reaper? It wasn't your turn yet, so you came back to live a more enjoyable and fulfilling life, right?" As I said this, both the patient and I smiled warmly and expressed our gratitude to each other.
This is what trauma surgeons live for each day.
--- pp.32-33

It is the role of a trauma surgeon to support the patient through his or her last medical history.
A being who helps this patient endure the countless external forces, holding him together! In a way, the patient's journey to recovery can be seen as a battle against external forces.
Even if your strength has collapsed once, it can be rebuilt if there is someone who supports and helps you.

--- p.43

I have been a surgeon for 20 years and a trauma surgeon for 15 years.
I am living this life as a karma now, with a heart that is welling up within me, and I cautiously predict that, barring any natural disasters in the future, I will continue to do so until the next time the world changes.
I started this work half voluntarily and half involuntarily when the concept of a 'regional trauma center' was first introduced in our country.
Choosing a path that others have not taken can be fraught with hardship.
In Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken," there is a section where one is asked to choose between two paths.
I'm saying that choosing one of two paths changed everything for me.
I, too, am pursuing the path of a trauma surgeon by choice, and I believe that this choice is the right one.

--- pp.78-79

Today, I'm performing surgery on someone's family.
The patient I operate on could be a father with a beautiful daughter about to get married, or a husband in his 30s whose wife is pregnant.
Even if it wasn't surgery, a patient who had survived several near-death experiences in the intensive care unit for over two months is also a loving husband to a wife.
I believe that I am not treating just one patient in front of me, but that I am always treating the patient and their family together.
That day, I went into the operating room, focusing only on my grandmother's stomach and the liver itself.
But the result was that I was able to restore my grandmother's health, which had been a problem for decades, and at the same time, I was able to heal my cousins, my older cousins, and my entire family.
I know full well that this is the result of my entire family trusting me, a novice doctor at the time.
So, I always want to extend a warm hand to the patient once more, with the heart of treating someone's precious family.

--- pp.139-140

I'm in a state of confusion.
For a moment, my eyes feel dizzy.
The thought that I might collapse like this crosses my mind.
Moments like this are the saddest and most sorrowful.
really.
To replenish the already depleted glucose in my body, I quickly make a coffee mix and gulp it down.
I come to my senses a little, perhaps because of the caffeine or the sugar in the coffee mix that stimulated my brain, and I start thinking about how to treat the patient again.
At that moment, I remembered what my senior doctor had said long ago.
Patients don't wait
--- pp.148

One day becomes a month, and twelve months become a year.
The decades I have lived have been created by these days.
This patient whose heart is beating in front of me right now did not survive solely thanks to the efforts of the medical staff here.
It is clear that the patient and his family, along with everyone else, worked together to treat him and help him survive.
I quietly recite out loud to myself the famous quote that Director Ahn said in the cartoon “Slam Dunk.”
“The moment you give up, the match is over.”
--- p.160

Trauma surgeons like me are like dung beetles in the hospital.
But it is clear that in a moment of real need, it is a shining firefly that saves someone's family.
In the darkness, sometimes on the brink of death, a firefly guides a family or patient to the path to survival and a way to get closer to survival.

--- p.174

'You can just wipe off the blood on my body.
Blood stains can be wiped away as much as you want.
If the patient can live….'
High risk, high return.
Imagine a movie protagonist boldly betting at a casino and hoping to strike it rich.
It's something that everyone has imagined at least once.
Bold and courageous bets have a very small chance of making a fortune, but on the other hand, they have a greater chance of ending in bankruptcy.
To be honest, I always live in a high risk, low return reality.

--- p.211