This is a post from an online community titled "A Joseon Doctor Who Walked the Exact Opposite Path of Ahn Sang-ho, Who Is Currently Controversy."
The post deals with the life of Kim Ik-nam, who studied modern medicine in Japan with government support during the late Korean Empire—just like Ahn Sang-ho, the great-grandfather of actor Ha-young—but lived an entirely different life from Ahn, bringing his actions back into the spotlight.
According to the Korean Empire-era nationalist newspaper Daehan Maeil Sinbo and other sources, Ha-young's great-grandfather Ahn Sang-ho was a government-funded overseas student in 1898 who studied at the Tokyo Jikei-in School of Medicine in Japan, obtained a Japanese medical license, and practiced medicine locally.
Kim Ik-nam was a senior who graduated from the Jikei-in School of Medicine three years ahead of Ahn Sang-ho.
Despite graduating from the same school, the two men differed from the very beginning in their attitudes toward requests to be appointed as professors at "Uihakgyo," the first national modern medical educational institution in Korea.
After graduating from the Jikei-in School of Medicine in July 1899, Kim Ik-nam received a request from the Korean Empire government to take office as a professor at Uihakgyo, and he returned to Korea in August 1900 to assume the post.
He served as a professor at Uihakgyo for four years and produced a total of 32 Korean modern doctors.
He left a distinct mark on the history of modern Korean medicine by fostering the very first group of doctors trained in modern medicine at a time when the sovereignty of the Korean Empire was severely threatened.
The person appointed to succeed Kim Ik-nam as a professor at Uihakgyo was none other than Ahn Sang-ho.
However, although Ahn Sang-ho was appointed as a professor in October 1904, he refused to return to the country and was dismissed three months later.
Ahn Sang-ho only returned to Korea after Uihakgyo was forcibly integrated into Daehan Hospital by the Japanese Resident-General in 1907.
Unlike Ahn Sang-ho, who has faced suspicions of pro-Japanese activities, such as having his name listed as a council member of the pro-Japanese organization "Daejeong Chinmokhoe," various historical materials confirm that Kim Ik-nam kept his distance from Japanese imperialism and suffered disadvantages as a result.
He participated in a memorial project for Jeong Jae-hong, a patriotic martyr who committed suicide after attempting to assassinate Ito Hirobumi in June 1907.
Because of this, he suffered various disadvantages from the Japanese colonial authorities and ultimately failed to receive the official medical license known as the "Medical Practice License," which the Japanese issued to control the Korean medical community.
The life of Kim Ik-nam, which remained relatively unknown and buried despite his remarkable achievements, only began to receive full-scale attention in the 2000s.
Reported by Jung Da-eun | Video by Jang Yu-jin | Graphics by Yook Do-hyun | Produced by SBS Digital News
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