Medicine and Devotion

There was a small hospital for wounded guerrillas in a valley in the Xiaowangqing Guerrilla Zone during the period of the anti-Japanese armed struggle.  

One day in early December Juche 21 (1932), General Kim Il Sung visited the hospital.

He asked an army surgeon about conditions of serious patients and their treatment, and examined the pulses of some serious cases. Then he asked the surgeon what he needed for patient treatment.

The surgeon frankly said that the most serious problem was the lack of injections.

Kim Il Sung told commanding officers to obtain necessary medicines including injections as soon as possible by mobilizing revolutionary organizations in the enemy-controlled areas. Then he said: Of course,  good medicines are necessary for treating patients, but what is more important for a doctor is to keep sincere care for and devotion to people including revolutionary comrades; that is why it has been said from olden times that devotion is essential for medical treatment. He continued to say that the guerrilla surgeons had to take warmer care of their patients than any doctors would do, and show all sincerity for their treatment, regarding their pain as their own.

Several days later Kim Il Sung sent the hospital a large amount of medicines which had been obtained from enemy-controlled areas and captured from the enemy in battles. Seeing them, the surgeon and patients were moved to tears by his benevolence and devotion.