The Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) changed how Dr. Kim Jung-ryong thought about the future of medicine on the Korean Peninsula.

Kim, a physician by occupation, served as president of the Kaesong Cooperation Hospital from 2005 to 2012 and still dreams of going back to North Korea to treat infectious diseases under the banner of “unification medical science.”

The period he spent in Kaesong was the “heyday” of the KIC. A total of 350,000 patients were treated there during his tenure, including 50,000 South Koreans and 300,000 North Koreans. At its busiest, he would see 60 to 70 patients in a