There is a young doctor who moves the fierce environment at hospitals where people can feel the moment of life and death to literature. The doctor is Nam Gung-in who graduated Korea University and is in the military as a public health doctor at the fire department of Chungcheong province after finishing resident at the Korea University Medical Center.

On May 2013, he uploaded a writing started with ‘there aren’t residents at cardiovascular & thoracic surgery at the university’ on Facebook. Afterward, he was famous for ‘a good writing doctor’ and I want to introduce him as ‘a communicative writer’.

“I wrote the article titled <the truth of cardiovascular & thoracic surgery> in 2 or 3 hours. Many people shared the article in a few hours. I thought people might have the same anger about the truth of cardiovascular & thoracic surgery. Since then, I have uploaded writings every 10 days. ”

Afterward, he won the gold prize (Hanmi’s Doctor Article Award) with an article titled <Regarding Ice Bucket Challenge> that deals with patients with Lou Gehrig’s disease and their families and the Grand prize (2016) with a Essay titled <About Death> that deals with the irony of life and death through incidents that cancer patients suffered from. His articles are realistic and touch many people. About 10,000 people including his co-workers, students, housewives, and people in the media companies follow him. The most outstanding episodes are incidents happened in an emergency room.

The book, <There isn’t ‘If’>, released in July has 38 stories. The stories where doctors in emergency medicine speak as a narrator are originally from his Facebook. The popularity of his book is because of his sensitivity. Because he wrote the story on the next day after his patient with Lou Gehrig’s disease died, he couldn’t control his sad feelings. At the emergency room, he was cool-minded doctor, but when he wrote the book he became sensitive.

Sometimes, it’s confused whether the story is fictional or realistic, but he said “all stories are realistic”. It means every situation could be happen in the emergency room. But he changed some lines because he wanted to describe the situations such as lyrics from leading actors or description more vividly.

Readers are his motivation

A Year-long experience has been the foundation to make him a writer. Mr. Nam said “I have never learned how to write a book, but I read a lot of books when I was young. When I was a high school student, I was in a literacy club and hung with friends who wanted to be a writer. And I wrote poems to deal with patients’ stories, but people didn’t understand the connotation. Therefore, I turn it into proses to make people understand better. From a literal perspective, feeling on the spot can touch everyone. Whether or not a story is fun or touches people, I want to write a touching story.”

He says that the affectionate response of the readers becomes the driving force for the writing. He said “If I post on the internet, many people write comments and their feelings. It seems that my own writing is developing as I communicate with my readers.”

I want to communicate with the world with various stories

While living a busy routine as a doctor, he does not hesitate to write. Currently he is writing articles for various media such as the Hankook Ilbo, the Huffington Post, the Pikicast etc. He takes time to communicate with friends on Facebook at least an hour every day.

“I feel like I have found my position as a writer since I published my first book and I would like to write a lyrical journey as a short novel whose main character is not a doctor but a patient and I would like to be a travel writer. There are a lot of articles that I really want to challenge. So, for the time being, I will work hard as a writer.

His writing leads to a talent donation. He started ‘story funding’ of Daum KAKAO on the 12th to help people who have birth defects. Because he likes children, he once dreamed of being a specialist in Pediatrics medicine. He plans to write 10 stories in the story funding titled <the record of Dr. Gung-in Nam> The funding has already collected 80% of the total amount of donation (3million won) after he wrote 3 stories.

He said “Many doctors try to explain the problems in the medical environment, but sometimes they are too aggressive. Telling the truth can raise anger among doctors, but it is difficult to get sympathy from general people. I want to tell the irrational medical treatment system can do harm to both doctors and patients and make a social consensus through my writings.”

Even though he is a famous writer, he thinks himself as a doctor. I expect his bright future as a doctor and as a writer.