The western-style anesthesia at Yonsei University College of Medicine shares a history with the earliest anesthesia department in Korea.

According to the first annual report of Chejungwon in 1886, chloroform was used on the first surgery patient.

Anesthesia science lectures and clinical practice were introduced into the curriculum of surgery in 1917, and the sodium amytal intravenous anesthesia method was first introduced in 1927.

When Don Danber, an American surgeon, visited Severance Hospital and introduced an advanced method of anesthesia immediately after the country’s independence, anesthesia was first recognized as an independent subject in the field of Surgery.

Responding to the trend, our university opened the Department of Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, a completely separate department from the Department of Surgery, in 1957.

Currently, our department provides 1:1 education between medical students and professors or senior residents in medical practice, and gives them an opportunity to discuss anesthesia and pain medicine.

In 1986, we started our training programs by independently selecting residents and offering the best 4-year resident an opportunity to attend international academic conferences.