A cardiothoracic surgeon’s resignation letter has left a lingering impression on many people involved in the ongoing medical turmoil in Korea.

Choi Se-hoon, an associate professor of cardiothoracic and vascular surgery at Asan Medical Center (AMC) in Seoul, has recently announced his resignation.

In a personal social media post titled, "A resigning cardiothoracic professor’s remark," Choi claimed that the government's policies would "permanently destroy the healthcare system of this country," saying that he would leave the field after treating only his currently scheduled surgery patients.

"I feel like I have a nightmare every day. I can never believe that in just one month, healthcare in this country has been irreparably damaged. A month ago, when we had a full team, we were unafraid to see any patient. Now, however, we are scared and distressed to see them," he said.

Professor Choi continued, "I realize how dispiriting it is for a doctor to know how to treat a patient and not be able to treat them because of the circumstances," he said. "I was even more surprised with myself telling a student, ‘It's not that I'm not doing the surgery, it's just that the circumstances do not allow me to do it.’”

Choi said he is experiencing more mental than physical difficulties.

"After the resignation of my interns and residents, the number of patients I can operate on by myself is less than half of what it was before," he said. "If I operate on urgent patients first, the rest are piling up."

Choi acknowledged that he could not take it anymore, so he handed in his resignation, adding that he would not create a new patient-physician relationship and would leave the hospital after treating the patients he promised to operate on.

"I told every medical resident and student I met that cardiothoracic surgery is a great specialty and that if your hard work translates into a patient's life, you will have a lifetime of pride and gratitude," he said. "However, the golden age of cardiothoracic surgery in Korea, when you could go anywhere in the world and feel proud of yourself no matter what you saw, is over."

Choi emphasized the importance of accurate patient diagnosis, making a surgical plan, and carefully judging whether the patient can tolerate the surgery. He asked how much more cautious the government should be about changing the medical system of an entire country and added that the government “should never proceed so quickly and forcefully.”

"No matter how good the policy's intention, if it causes a country's medical care to collapse, it is only an amateurish government, a quack administration," he said. "The interns and residents were our future, and now that they have all left, there is nothing but despair for the future of the medical system in Korea."

In conclusion, Professor Choi said, "Who is pushing the country's healthcare down the road to ruin? Who is threatening our people? Who is causing young doctors who did their best to save patients just a month ago to leave in despair? I hope that the people will long remember that the responsibility for this lies with policymakers who planned and executed it when numerous people whom these young doctors could have saved were dying in pain."