2 S. Korean doctors to operate in North

For the first time since Korea was divided into two parts nearly half a century ago, doctors of South Korea will visit the North to operate on heart patients.

The doctors are Kim Seong-Sun, 55, director of cardiology, and another cardiologist Lee Mun-Hyeong, 40, both of Yonsei University Medical School.

The duo will leave Seoul on Oct. 23 and fly into Pyongyang via Beijing. After performing operations on five heart patients, the two will return to Seoul on Nov. l, Yonsei Hospital announced Monday.

The specialists have been asked by an American medical instrument firm donating US$l million worth of equipment including an artificial heart beat modulator to go there to give technical advice and carry out the operations.

While in Pyongyang the surgeons plans to visit Pyongyang Medical College and meet with medical practitioners to counsel them on the use of the medical instruments provided by the foreign company.

Dr. Kim expressed hope that the valuable opportunity to witness the state of medicine in North Korea, so far little known to the South, should help encourage future exchanges between the medical communities of the two sides.

Lee Jin-Yeong ecolee@donga.com