[Bestian Hospital, Seoul, Korea]

          Witnessing burn patients is a rare event in most Korean university hospitals. In fact, doctors would consider slight burn injuries as merely mild blisters. However, for severe burn victims whose bodies are fifty percent or more damaged, the story is strikingly different. In these cases, doctors have to move promptly to cover the patient’s wound, prevent any infection, and minimize the patient’s agony. A doctor’s minor or seemingly trivial decision of how to help the patient could determine one from having permanent scars on their bodies or not. To investigate more about burn injuries and patients, I conducted an interview with a Children Burn Specialist, doctor Jinkyung Jo, at Bestian Hospital on July 22nd. Bestian Hospital is known as one of the best burn specialist hospitals in Korea. Dr. Jo has been working at Bestian Hospital for more than twenty years to help cure both children and adolescent burn patients.
 
[Interviewing Dr. Jo]
 
Q: How did you first start curing burn patients?
 
A: 21 years ago, I worked at the emergency room at Yonsei Severance Hospital. I visited and worked at Bestian Hospital just out of curiosity and have been working here until now.

Q: I understand that there are not many specialized hospitals for burn patients. Why do you think fewer hospitals exist for burn patients than for those of other patients?

A: There are a total of eight specialized hospitals for burn patients in Korea. Obviously, there are other smaller clinics or hospitals, but only eight of them can actually take care of patients with major burn injuries. In many countries, treatments and surgeries for burn patients are not common because there of the lack of serious burn patients in general. Since burn injuries are nothing like diseases, in which anyone can get, burn injuries typically occur in countries with poor safety regulations.

Q: When you meet young burn patients, where do they get hurt most in what kinds of situations? A: Usually, infants around the age of one occupy the highest number of burn injuries in children because that is the period when infants move and crawl a lot. Most of my patients get burn injuries on their hands. About 60 percent of patients get burn injuries when boiled water or hot coffee get in contact with their delicate skin. 30 percent of the child burn patients get burns by touching stoves, clothing irons, rice cookers, and broilers. As shown in the stats, about 75 percent of children burn injuries occur at home.
 
[Dr. Jo treating the patient]
 
Q: Are there any special precautions to prevent burn injuries for children?
 
A: There are no special precautions other than for parents to be extremely wary of their children. For example, parents should place all electric outlets to higher locations so that children do not reach them easily. Sometimes, children can stick metal chopsticks into the electric outlets and get electrified. Not only that, it would be effective for the government to make rules regulating maximum tap water temperature. For example, some of the parents unintentionally give burn injuries to their infants when they try to bathe them with hot tap water. Even a second exposure to 70 degrees Celsius of hot water can cause burn injuries, so it is better to set the maximum temperature of tap water to 50 degrees Celsius.
 
Q: Are there any potential negative effects to both the burn patients and their families during and after treatment?
 
A: When the fathers, who provide the main source of income to the families, get major burn injuries, they are no longer able to provide money to their families. Even though patients successfully receive treatment and leave hospitals, it is extremely hard for them to get jobs since many people have negative views towards burn patients and looking at the horrid scars of the burn patients can make others uncomfortable. After the burn patients leave the hospital, it takes an average of one year for patients to relieve agony from scars and recovered wounds. In many cases, even after the successful surgeries and treatment of burn injuries, both patients and their families may develop chronic depression, harm themselves, and even try to commit suicide because of the dark future ahead of them.
 
Q: Does the government provide any programs to help both burn and recovered patients adapt better to the society?
 
A: The government and several other foundations provide funding for the more expensive burn surgeries. However, there are many requirements and regulations to receive those services, and even when patients do get help, the money that is provided is still too little to cover the whole expanse. The government and some other organizations do provide some psychological treatment or programs to the patients, but they are rarely effective and not held regularly.
 
Q: Do you have any specific patients that you remember during your more than 20 years of work at Bestian Hospital?
 
A: I think that most doctors would remember the patients who unfortunately died. However, I will start with a case of when my patient successfully survived. When I first came to Bestian Hospital, I was surprised that there were only four doctors in the entire seven-story building.
 
             One day, a group of family members suddenly rushed into the emergency room with their daughter. She was unconscious because she had inhaled too much smoke emitted from a burning electric pad. I was not sure what to do since it was my first time having a child patient. To make matters worse, the other doctors were away, so I had to call my senior doctors. However, they merely said that since I was the only doctor there, I had to take care of the patient. Even though I called the university hospitals, they, for some reasons, refused to take my patient. Having no choice but for me to examine her, I set up an oxygen machine to keep the young patient alive. Unfortunately, the machine was unable to function properly, so I had to squeeze the respirator to keep her breathing for three or four days. To my relief, she eventually fully recovered and left the hospital. When she visited me at my office, I felt proud of myself for doing my best to help the child in an urgent situation and felt grateful to her for coping with the treatment well and successfully recuperating.
 
          On the other hand, I had a boy patient that I could not save on 2007. He was a 12-year- old who was living in a small house with his father and grandmother. On Parents’ Day, which is on May 8th  in Korea, the boy’s house caught on fire. The boy escaped the first time, but he went into the house again to save his father and grandma. Unfortunately, both of his father and grandmother passed away, and the boy got a major burn injury on 80 percent of his body. In the beginning of his treatment at the hospital, he made some great progress, but since he had a weak immune system, he died by endocarditis, or damage to the heart. The thing I regret most is that if I had tried something different at that moment, I could have saved the patient. As a doctor, even though there was nothing I could do better for the patient, I still feel some sense of guilt for not being able to save my patient.
 
Q: It seems like you would also get stress or psychological distress when you encounter such burn patients. How do you relieve your stress?
 
A: As a doctor, I always live under the pressure of thinking that I have to save my patient. If my patients’ conditions exacerbate and pass away, I often attribute such unfortunate situations to my inability. Usually, many doctors get personal counseling with psychiatrists to relieve their anxiety or talk with other colleague doctors to alleviate their stress.
 
Q: What is your and Bestian Hospital’s potential goal of the future?
 
A: Our goal is to provide medical service to patients without creating much burden to their financial circumstances. In addition, treating burn injuries requires significant teamwork among other doctors and the nurses, so we wish to maximize our teamwork to help and save at least one more life each day.
 








Youngjae (Aaron) Kim
Grade: Rising 12th
Pomfret School
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