This image is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]
This image is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]

A former nurse has come forward to say she suffered similar workplace bullying at a hospital in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, where a nurse in her 20s recently died after enduring "taeoom" — a deeply entrenched form of harassment in which senior nurses repeatedly verbally abuse and torment junior colleagues under the guise of training.

According to an MBC report Friday, former nurse B, also in her 20s, said she was subjected to the same abuse from the moment she joined the hospital — shortly after the death of nurse A, who took her own life in early June, became public.

B said the taeoom began after she joined the hospital in June 2022. Taeoom is the nursing profession's deeply ingrained practice in which senior nurses repeatedly bully and verbally abuse junior staff under the pretext of training.

She said that when she made mistakes, a senior nurse would deliberately scatter needles and other medical instruments on the floor and order her to pick them all up. She was also repeatedly called aside and subjected to verbal abuse for allegedly failing to greet seniors properly.

"When I apologized, they told me not to even say sorry. If I stayed quiet, they scolded me for having a bad attitude," she recalled. "Once, I was told to do nothing and just stand there — and I had to stand still until the end of my shift."

B said what was even harder to bear than the verbal abuse was what she called "staring taeoom."

"They would just keep glaring at you. No expression — just looking at you with contempt," she said. The pain she endured at the time was laid bare in her diary. On her blog, B wrote a series of entries including "eyes full of contempt poured over me," "I wish I were dead," "I want to die," and "I cried again."

She submitted her resignation just three months after joining and left the medical field entirely. Even after leaving, she said she suffered severe aftereffects.

Two of the senior nurses B identified as her abusers were the same individuals A had named as perpetrators of workplace harassment before her death, according to reports.

B said she came forward after feeling overcome with guilt upon learning of A's story. "It seems like A joined after I left. I keep wondering — if I had written even one line about workplace harassment as my reason for quitting, would anything have been even slightly different?" she said.

A, who became a nurse three years ago, was subjected to taeoom by her seniors from the very start of her first posting and took her own life in early June. She had been subjected to verbal abuse — including the threat "I can taeoom you until you kill yourself" — made in front of colleagues, and was routinely ignored when she greeted her seniors.

A resigned last April and filed a workplace harassment complaint with the Ministry of Employment and Labor, but harassment was recognized against only one of the three people she had named. The hospital issued nothing more than a reprimand for that individual, and when A learned that all the others remained at work, she took her own life.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of self-harm or suicide, contact the Ministry of Health and Welfare's helpline at 1393, available 24/7. Please request a translator for English-language services.


betterj@heraldcorp.com