South Korea seems to be faring better than most of the world, with the daily tally of new coronavirus cases now averaging below 30 -- and we have the front-liners to thank.

Doctors, nurses and other health care professionals have been risking their lives to protect others from the disease in a variety of fields. As pandemic wears on with no end in sight, seven workers on Korea’s front lines share their stories.


Dr. Ahn Yeo-hyun, 41, is a COVID-19 response innovator.


Ahn, who works at a public health center in Busan’s southern district, has not been able to see her friends or eat out for over three months. She wants to be extra careful, as most of her job involves screening people suspected of having the virus -- sometimes 30 to 40 a day. “Sure, I miss hanging out with people, but if I passed the virus on to someone else, that would be unbecoming of me as a doctor in public service,” she said.

She said the health center’s doctors, nurses and staff members had been working extended shifts since the coronavirus hit the country. On busy days they don’t get lunch breaks, and they have to work weekends because the virus doesn’t take time off.

To cope with the extraordinary workload, Ahn designed a “telephone booth” style coronavirus testing booth that allows medical staff to swab patients without direct physical contact. The testing booth has caught on in the rest of the country and abroad, having been exported to nine countries including Japan and Russia.

Looking ahead to the fall, when respiratory illnesses are more common, she advises, “Don’t forget to get your flu shot.”



Dr. Kim Hyean-ji, 34, rushed to Daegu at the peak of the outbreak.


From late March through mid-April, Kim, a professor at Seoul National University’s emergency center, looked after some 20 patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Daegu, then the country’s COVID-19 epicenter. She worked two shifts, amounting to 12 hours a day.

Most patients there were older, she said, and at least four died over the two weeks she was there. “Patients didn’t get to say goodbye to their family or loved ones because they were isolated,” she said. That was the hardest part for her.

She said she didn’t tell her parents she was going to a COVID-19 hospital until the very last minute. “I didn’t want them to worry.”

After returning to Seoul, she continued volunteering at drive-thru clinics and testing sites in between her normal working hours.

Kim also treated Korea’s last Middle East respiratory syndrome patient in 2015. She said she didn’t expect another terrifying infectious disease to come around so soon.

“As the situation drags on, strict social distancing can be hard. But I think we can still follow the basics of infection control: face masks and hand hygiene,” she said.



Lung specialist Dr. Park Sung-hoon, 49, treats severely ill COVID-19 patients.


Park treated three severely ill patients in the respiratory ward of Hallym University Medical Center in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, all of whom have fully recovered.

One was Korea’s first COVID-19 survivor to receive a double-lung transplant. The 50-year-old woman, who was healthy prior to diagnosis, spent a record 112 days on a life support machine known as an ECMO machine.

Since she was first admitted in late February, the hospital’s team of health professionals worked in tight shifts and literally never left her side. “That is a standard protocol in caring for patients who are on ECMO,” he said. While the machines can be life-saving, they also pose significant risks.

“Treating a COVID-19 patient takes five times more personnel than a regular ICU patient. If cases spike again, such concentrated care will be hard to deliver.”

Ahead of a second big wave, it’s time to decide how best to allocate the limited medical resources, he said.



Neurosurgeon Dr. Cho Sung-yun, 43, orchestrated care efforts at an international COVID-19 treatment center. 


Cho spent around 40 days at a treatment center for international COVID-19 patients in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, as the head doctor.

When the Ministry of Health and Welfare asked for his help in March, he assembled a team of seven physicians, all of whom are his colleagues at the New Korea Hospital in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province. They were mostly surgeons, as specialists from the hospital’s respiratory ward could not afford to put aside their existing duties.

“This unprecedented emergency has called for doctors across all specialties to be mobilized,” he said, adding that this was possible because the center hosted patients with only mild symptoms or no symptoms. Patients who developed more serious symptoms were immediately moved to nearby hospitals.

Taking the job meant not seeing his family for a while, including his two elementary school-aged children.

“Most doctors have never seen a crisis like this in their careers,” he said.



Nurse Jo Hyo-jung, 37, sees respiratory patients daily at “coronavirus-safe” hospital.


The respiratory ward of the hospital in Gimpo where she works is a state-designated “contagion-free” institution, which means it caters to respiratory patients who don’t have the coronavirus. The hospital set up an outdoor care site to examine patients and test them for the new coronavirus to prevent it from spreading.

To her, the emotional exhaustion of being in a constant state of vigilance weighs on her more heavily than the physical fatigue from wearing layers of protective gear in the heat.

“We do everything we can to protect the patients and ourselves,” she said. But still, every day at work, the risk of infection is always lurking in the shadows.

Jo was one of three nurses at the hospital who signed up to work at an international COVID-19 center for nearly a month and a half, until April 28. At the institution, medical staff are quarantined along with the patients for as long as they work there.

She is the youngest in her family, and initially her parents and her older brother did not want her go -- but they respected her decision in the end.

“To be honest, I was afraid at first. We didn’t know much about the virus then. But I’m happy I did it, and I’m willing to do it again if my help is needed.”



Internal medicine specialist Dr. Choi Seung-jun, 58, worked evening shifts at a virus testing center. 


For three months, until early July, Cho rotated shifts with other primary care physicians in the central Seoul district of Yongsan and volunteered at the COVID-19 testing center. After his office closed, he worked 7-9 p.m. collecting samples from people with symptoms or who had been exposed to sick people.

Choi said he and the other doctors in Yongsan are ready to step up for the community and help in any way they can if the number of cases in the city begins to increase again. He said he believed it was “doctors’ calling.”

His 26-year-old son is also on COVID-19 duty, looking after patients at treatment centers in North Gyeongsang Province as a public health officer. “As a father and a fellow doctor, I couldn’t be more proud.”



General practitioner Dr. Kim Eun-yong, 50, was among hundreds of physicians who stepped up for Daegu. 


Kim started working night shifts at a Daegu hospital the day after the president of the city’s medical association, Lee Seong-gu, pleaded for help in a text message sent Feb. 25 to health workers nationwide. “Please come help us in Daegu now,” Lee said as hospital beds filled up and the need for testing escalated.

The Daegu native, who has run a clinic in the city’s southeastern district of Suseong for over 12 years, said he said he “had to do something” to stop the virus from ravaging his home city. “Seeing the empty streets was eerie. That wasn’t the Daegu that I knew,” he said.

He said he was moved by how quickly health care workers around the country came to help and by all the support the city has received.

Now, Daegu doctors are working on a white paper detailing everything they learned from the experience, he said.

By Kim Arin (arin@heraldcorp.com)