Professor Yung Kyoon Lee, also known by his pen name “Il Cheon (一泉),” was born in Yeongwol-gun, Gangwon Province, Korea in 1921 as the oldest of 7 children (Fig. 1). In 1938, he graduated from Chuncheon High School and enrolled in the College of Medicine at Keijo Imperial University, Japan as a pre-medical student, graduating in 1944. After completing his university education, he worked for 8 years as an assistant in the Department of Medicine at Keijo Imperial University, Japan. During the Korean War, he was appointed as a full-time surgical lecturer in Busan in September 1952 and promoted to Assistant Professor of Surgery at Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea in May 1954.
Fig. 1.
Professor Yung Kyoon Lee, who performed the first open heart surgery in Korea using a cardiopulmonary bypass machine on March 26, 1963.
On January 7, 1957, the Department of Surgery at Seoul National University was divided into 4 specialized departments, which included the newly independent department of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, alongside with the department of general surgery, the department of orthopedic surgery, and the department of neurosurgery. Although Professor Lee was initially interested in neurosurgery, he decided to take responsibility for thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, given the need for a specialist in cardiac surgery at Seoul National University Hospital.
After the Korean War, the United States provided aid to Korea’s reconstruction in various fields, including medical field. An agreement for mutual cooperation, known as the Minnesota Project (Fig. 2), was established between Seoul National University, representing Korea, and the State of Minnesota in the United States, which lasted from 1955 to 1961. As part of the Minnesota Project, Professor Lee was sent to the University of Minnesota for 2 years, starting in August 1957, where he studied cardiac surgery under the tutelage of the world-renowned Dr. Clarence Walton Lillehei (Fig. 3). During this time in the United States, Dr. Norman Shumway, Dr. Christian Barnard, and Dr. Richard DeWall also learned from Dr. Lillehei. After he returned from training for 2 years, heart surgery at Seoul National University Hospital reached a new turning point [1].
Fig. 2.
Agreement between Seoul National University and University of Minnesota (September 5, 1954). Kyu-nam Choi, President of Seoul National University (middle) and Orville L. Freeman, governor of Minnesota (right).
Fig. 3.
Professor Yung Kyoon Lee (second from the right) participating in the Minnesota Project and training under Dr. Lillehei (left).
On August 6, 1959, after Lee’s return from the United States, he tried Korea’s first open-heart surgery on an 8-year-old child with an atrial septal defect, using a cardiopulmonary bypass machine, with Dr. George Shimert, a fellow from Dr. Lillehei. Unfortunately, the child died due to a mechanical issue with the machine. At that time, Korea lacked medical equipment, and resources for cardiac surgery, but Professor Lee persevered in his pursuit of success in cardiac surgery despite these challenging circumstances. His efforts and the difficult conditions of that period are well-documented in his letters to Dr. Lillehei [2].
In a letter dated March 14, 1961, he wrote, “a day does not pass without a talk of p-o (heart-lung machine) in my home. My 4-year-old daughter repeats it without even knowing what it means and pronounces your name correctly which would be rather difficult for a small Korean kid.” In another letter, dated July 22, 1961, he wrote, “I need it (heparin) very badly for clinical use.” Looking at this, you can guess how difficult the situation was at this time. Despite these difficulties, Professor Lee continued his research on open heart surgery and published a review article titled “On cardiopulmonary bypass machine” in the Journal of the Korean Medical Association in 1960 [3].
On March 26, 1963, his relentless efforts to achieve success in open-heart surgery after returning from the United States finally paid off. For the first time in Korea, he successfully performed surgery on a 28-year-old male patient with an atrial septal defect using a cardiopulmonary bypass machine. The atrial septal defect was primarily sutured, and the operation time for the cardiopulmonary bypass machine was 12 minutes. This accomplishment was the result of continuous dedication to cardiac surgery despite various adverse conditions, such as insufficient social support, inadequate and incomplete medical equipment, and a severe shortage of medical materials. According to his memoir, it was impossible to purchase necessary surgical equipment like oxygenators and surgical suture materials at that time and he had no choice but to reuse discarded sutures during his training in Minnesota.
In a letter to Dr. Lillehei dated March 27, 1963, one day after his first successful open-heart surgery, he wrote, “Finally, a survival case could be recorded in the 7th and 8th surgery. I sincerely appreciate you...…Although this is just one success case, it has always been my goal since I returned home…… I only wish to continue animal experiments and surgery for patients.” In response to Professor Lee’s letter, on June 6, 1963, Dr. Lillehei wrote, “I am very proud to hear of your excellent start in open heart surgery despite the innumerable problems. I do hope, however, that you do not become discouraged because victory comes in the darkest hours.”
Professor Lee was not satisfied with his initial surgical success and, in 1965, spent a year at Uppsala University in Sweden for additional training to gain more knowledge. There, he was trained under Professor Viking Björk and endeavored to introduce Sweden’s advanced cardiac surgery techniques to Korea. Afterward, he became the first Chief Director of the Korean Society for Thoracic and Cardiothoracic Surgery (KSTCS) from May 1968 to May 1970 and led the development of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery (Fig. 4). Later, he served as the 7th Chief Director again and both the 2nd and 10th President of KSTCS. In 1977, the number of annual open-heart surgeries exceeded 100 (Fig. 5).
Fig. 4.
The inaugural meeting of the Korean Society for Thoracic and Cardiothoracic Surgery in 1968. Professor Yung Kyoon Lee was the first Chief Director from May 1968 to May 1970.
Fig. 5.
Receiving a bouquet of flowers from a nurse after completing 100 annual open heart surgeries.
From June 1982 to May 1986, he served as the President of Seoul National University Hospital and contributed to the development of pediatric heart surgery through the opening of Korea’s first children’s hospital. Most notably, the 6th Asia-Pacific Congress for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery was successfully held in Seoul in 1984, while he was the President of the Asia-Pacific Association of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.
After retiring from Seoul National University in September 1986, he was appointed as an emeritus professor and received the Moran Medal, the Order of Civil Merit, in recognition of his contributions to the advancement of cardiac surgery and medicine in Korea. He passed away from esophageal cancer at the age of 74 in August, 1994 while he was serving as the director of the Heart Research Institute at Bucheon Sejong Hospital, Bucheon, Korea. He was left behind his wife, 2 sons, and 3 daughters.
In a 1994 interview with Professor Won-Gon Kim before he passed away from esophageal cancer, he shared the following advice for junior surgeons.
“There will be many practical difficulties in working as a thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon. You may face challenges after graduating from the department, such as not having jobs or no opportunities to open a private hospital. You might also worry about whether you could apply what you studied hard when you were young, as patient cases may be limited. To be honest, this can probably cause you to feel anxiety. However, you should have the guts to be a thoracic surgeon because of these difficulties. I also did the job, since I was young and had a spirit of challenge to overcome the difficulties. I believe you can do it too.
Dr. Yung Kyoon Lee laid the foundation for cardiac surgery in Korea with tireless efforts during the 1960s. He always tried his best to learn new knowledge and became a role model for his disciples. There is no denying that he was a great pioneer in Korean thoracic surgery from his training in Minnesota in 1957 to his death from esophageal cancer in 1994.
Funding Statement
Funding This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Article information
Author contributions
Conceptualization: JWC, KYP, KHK. Data curation: JWC. Methodology: JWC, KYP. Writing–original draft: JWC. Writing–review & editing: KYP, KHK. Final approval of the manuscript: all authors.
Conflict of interest
Jae Woong Choi is an editorial board member of the journal but was not involve in the peer reviewer selection, evaluation, or decision process of this article. No other potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.
References
- 1.Seoul National University, author. History of Department of Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgery, Seoul National University Medical School. Seoul National University; 2000. [Google Scholar]
- 2.Kim WG. Analysis of 39 letters concerned with the late professor Lee YK and Dr Lillehei and the letters were written between Apr. 1958 and Dec. 1981. Korean J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2009;42:543–59. [Google Scholar]
- 3.Lee YK. On cardiopulmonary bypass machine. J Korean Med Assoc [Internet] 1960 [cited 2023 May 10];3:23-9. Available from: http://kmafile.kma.org/Hyeophoeji/pdf/60010011.pdf .