A Social History of Seoul National University Hospital: The National Health Insurance, Three-Minute Consultation, and the Convoluted Legacy of American Aid for a Postcolonial Medical Institution in South Korea

The author traces the evolution of Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) and its predecessors, focusing on their transformation from the 1960s to the 1980s. Starting as an impoverished governmental hospital of a postcolonial country, it grew into a major South Korean biomedical corporation with many faculty members with American training, a new main building with the latest technologies, and a larger independent budget supported by the National Health Insurance (NHI). However, this evolution accompanied multiple issues stemming from overcrowding, which resulted in short and skimpy consultations, a poor environment, staff exploitation, and various minor crimes. Yet the crowds in the hospital assisted young doctors’ training and some faculty members’ research. The author explains this complexity by analyzing the American aid’s legacy alongside the NHI’s roles. This explains the limitations to the U.S. attempt to shape Korea’s medicine amid its state-driven industrialization and health insurance evolution under a military dictatorship, which partly reflected the colonial heritage.