"I can burn you until you turn to ash once a new nurse arrives." This is the verbal abuse that the late Kang (27), a nurse who passed away at her home on June 2, allegedly heard from a senior nurse while working at a hospital in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, according to her bereaved family.

Kang's mother, Kim, burst into tears during a phone call with the media on July 7 while describing the "taeum" her daughter had suffered.

"Taeum" is a slang term in the nursing industry that refers to a culture where senior nurses harass and bully newcomers under the guise of training.

It is known to have originated from the expression "burning someone until they become ash."

"My daughter said that while she was entering data, a senior nurse who was playing games on her phone behind her mentioned the 'burning' caused by taeum as if she wanted my daughter to hear it," Kim said. "When my daughter came home that day, she was trembling and sobbing, saying, 'I don't even know how I finished my shift.'"

Kang did not struggle with hospital life from the beginning.

According to her mother, Kang joined the hospital in February 2023 and was assigned to the emergency room.

The family explained that she was quick to learn her duties and adapted well to the field, earning praise from her seniors.

Kang, who dreamed of becoming a nurse after attending a lecture by a professional nurse while exploring her career path in her third year of high school, entered nursing college and succeeded in finding a job immediately after graduation.

"My daughter was such a diligent student that her professors wrote letters of recommendation for her, and even after she joined the hospital, she worked so well that she received praise from seniors, such as 'We've got an ace,' and 'Just keep doing what you're doing,'" Kim said. "It was a time when she worked happily even while being incredibly busy."

However, the family claims that Kang began to experience taeum about two months after joining the hospital.

Kim explained that the incident began when an on-duty doctor offered to buy drinks for the nurses and asked Kang, the youngest, to take the orders.

A senior nurse took issue with the fact that Kang was sitting on a backless, round stool—a common sight in hospitals—while taking the orders.

"One of the people who usually led the bullying asked, 'Does it make sense for someone with her experience to be sitting there?' and that was the first instance of harassment," Kim said.

Kim claims that the bullying against Kang intensified after that.

"My daughter said that after the drink order incident, her greetings were often ignored by the seniors," Kim said. "She confided that she was frequently criticized for different ways of handling tasks, and when she asked questions because she wanted to do better, she was either scolded or received no response at all."

The family explained that starting in May of that year, Kang appealed to the head nurse, who leads the nurses, several times, but nothing changed significantly other than a shift adjustment for about two months.

"My daughter was depressed, saying, 'I can't even do the work I'm usually good at when I'm in front of that senior (the person identified as the perpetrator of the bullying),'" Kim said. "Then she heard the remark, 'I can burn you until you're ash once a new nurse arrives,' which left her in deep shock."

Kim even suggested that her daughter quit, but Kang reportedly cried and said, "Mom, I didn't do anything wrong. I really love this job. I want to keep being a nurse. And I don't want to run away."

The family said that Kang, who continued her hospital life despite the pain, finally submitted her resignation in March of last year after being severely reprimanded by a senior for a medication dosage error while treating a patient.

After quitting the hospital, Kang filed a complaint about workplace bullying with labor authorities.

Kim said that afterward, Kang complained of severe psychological distress, and even while being cared for by her family, she made attempts to take her own life.

The family said that Kang eventually received psychiatric treatment and was even admitted to a closed ward.

"She was a child who had never received psychiatric treatment before becoming a nurse," Kim said, unable to continue her sentence.

In September of that year, labor authorities determined that workplace bullying was recognized for one of the three people identified as perpetrators of the taeum against Kang and ordered the hospital to take corrective measures.

However, the labor authorities only determined whether bullying had occurred and left the specific level of corrective action to the hospital.

In March of this year, Kang was also recognized as having a work-related illness (moderate depressive episode) by the Occupational Disease Judgment Committee.

However, Kang passed away on June 2 without recovering from the trauma.

"Please help so that my daughter's death is not in vain and that taeum incidents never happen again," said Kim, who was in tears throughout the interview. "She died while living only on her bed, feeling resentful and saying, 'My life is ruined, yet the perpetrators are living happily.'"

Meanwhile, the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency has formed a 20-member investigation team dedicated to the Kang case under the Metropolitan Special Investigation Unit.

The police are accelerating their investigation by analyzing the one-year diary left by the deceased and calling in the bereaved family and friends as witnesses.

(Photo: Yonhap News)