'Technology's progress should return to the warmest places': Ulsan University Hospital's Han Myeong-wol

The healthcare reality of Ulsan, South Korea's industrial capital, is paradoxical. The city consistently ranks among the highest in the country for gross regional domestic product per capita, yet it is the only city with a population of more than 1.1 million that has no public hospital providing general care. Total hospital beds account for just 2.2 percent of the national supply, and 25.6 percent of patients travel to Seoul's "Big Five" hospitals or other regions for treatment — a medical exodus that drains an estimated 347.8 billion won from the local economy each year.

One physician is working to change that, building what he calls a "regionally self-sufficient system for serious illness" in this underserved landscape. Han Myeong-wol, vice president of clinical affairs and a professor of otolaryngology at Ulsan University Hospital — the city's only tertiary care center and its designated regional anchor medical institution — has spent years reshaping what patients in Ulsan can expect from care close to home.

Han oversees the hospital's clinical administration while also holding one of the rarest credentials in Korean otolaryngology: certified proctor status for the da Vinci SP robotic system in the thyroid field. The Korea Herald spoke with him via video call on May 26 to discuss how Ulsan University Hospital has used advanced robotic surgery to push past the limits of regional medicine, and where he believes healthcare innovation should ultimately lead.

Han spoke with conviction. Ulsan University Hospital recently drew national attention when it ranked third overall and first among non-metropolitan institutions in the fifth-cycle tertiary hospital designation evaluation. It also leads non-metropolitan hospitals in national health insurance billing. The result is all the more striking given that the ongoing physician-government standoff has threatened the survival of many hospitals outside Seoul. At the center of the hospital's performance is a robotic-assisted surgery program it has been building for more than a decade.

Ulsan University Hospital moved early, becoming the first hospital in the country to introduce the da Vinci Xi robotic surgery system in 2014. "The goal was not to follow along because we are a regional hospital, but to become a leader in specific fields — and robotic-assisted surgery was at the heart of that," Han said. "Above all, the surgeons who actually perform the operations had strong conviction and enthusiasm, and there was a shared understanding within the hospital that the introduction of the da Vinci system was an opportunity to develop new surgical fields and treatment areas together," he added.

The key, Han emphasized, was that the equipment investment was driven by the medical staff's own commitment. The aim was never simply to be first with cutting-edge hardware, but to raise the level of the teams operating it and the clinical processes surrounding it.

In December 2024, at the height of the physician-government conflict — when most hospitals had frozen capital spending — Ulsan University Hospital added a single-port robotic system to reduce waiting times for cancer patients. In 2025, it became the first hospital in South Korea to install Ion, a robotic bronchoscopy system for lung cancer diagnosis, drawing patients from as far as the Chungcheong and Jeolla regions. Cumulative robotic surgery cases have now surpassed 6,500, reaching the manufacturer's original target two years ahead of schedule.

Robotic procedures now account for 56 percent of all cancer surgeries at the hospital, surpassing laparoscopic surgery. In urology, the robotic-assisted share has reached 85 percent — in effect a full conversion to robotic-assisted surgery. The head and neck surgery division ranks second nationally in robotic-assisted case volume.

The hospital has also moved beyond counting cases, using clinical data to demonstrate the patient-centered value of robotic surgery. An analysis of 2,965 cancer and other surgeries performed over two years from 2024 found that robotic procedures reduced the rate of conversion to open surgery by 98 percent compared with laparoscopy, cut complication rates by 37 percent, and reduced surgical site infection rates by 18 percent.

The resulting savings in social healthcare costs reached approximately 1.2 billion won ($790,000) in cancer surgery alone — roughly 6.4 million won per case from fewer readmissions, 4.6 million won from fewer complications, and 2.66 million won from reduced open-surgery conversions. "This is not simply a matter of socioeconomic efficiency," Han said. "For patients, it means less time lost and less financial and emotional uncertainty during treatment. For the hospital, it means making better use of limited medical resources — and that matters enormously."

The Head and Neck Thyroid Cancer Center, which Han also leads, reflects his surgical craftsmanship most clearly. The center has performed more than 7,000 thyroid cancer surgeries since 2000. In August 2025, it became the first institution outside Seoul to successfully perform a fully scarless transoral robotic thyroidectomy — a highly complex procedure in which a micro-incision inside the lower lip leaves no visible scarring on the neck or chest. The operation is currently available at only two hospitals in South Korea: one large Seoul hospital and Ulsan University Hospital.

Han also developed his own technique, the single-port robotic hairline approach, which uses a minimal incision inside the hairline to bring operating time to within 90 minutes and allows patients to be discharged within two days of surgery.

"By adopting robotic-assisted surgery early, we also began thinking about minimally invasive approaches relatively early," Han said. "That led us to refine our techniques to preserve nerves and blood vessels more precisely, reduce complications, pain and discomfort, and enable faster recovery and return to daily life." He added: "The greatest satisfaction I feel as a physician is seeing lecturers, self-employed workers and office workers — people for whom preserving their voice is essential — return to their livelihoods immediately after surgery."

That patient-centered attention has driven innovation across the hospital's systems. To spare cancer patients the anguish of waiting weeks after a diagnosis, the hospital built a fast-track pathway linking same-day imaging — CT, MRI and PET-CT — with same-day consultations. Cancer coordinators manage each patient's schedule in detail before they even arrive. Other university hospitals have since adopted the system as a model.

Ulsan University Hospital is now looking toward a broader horizon: the sustainability of healthcare itself. The hospital's own analysis found that shorter hospital stays resulting from robotic surgery — a reduction of 403 inpatient days per year — cut annual carbon dioxide emissions by 18,626 kilograms and medical waste by 2,245 kilograms at the tertiary hospital level, equivalent to planting 850 trees.

Linked to the da Vinci 5 system introduced this year, the hospital is working to establish the "Ulsan Cancer Integrated Care Fund," which would help cover treatment costs for vulnerable cancer patients and support local cancer research. The underlying philosophy is that healthcare sustainability is not limited to environmental concerns — it also means designing a structure in which better treatment outcomes flow back as tangible benefits to the community.

As Ulsan's only tertiary care center and regional anchor medical institution, the hospital regards building a healthcare environment where local patients can receive treatment with confidence — without traveling far — as its most fundamental obligation.

"For serious illnesses like cancer, treatment outcomes matter enormously, but so does the time and financial burden patients must bear throughout the process," Han said. "The reason Ulsan University Hospital has continued to strengthen its capacity for high-difficulty treatments, including robotic-assisted surgery, is precisely to raise both the quality of care and access to it at the same time."

At a time when warnings of regional healthcare collapse grow louder, the advanced clinical capabilities and patient-first philosophy that Han has quietly built offer one of the clearest road maps for where medicine outside South Korea's capital can — and should — go.