A friend recommended this outstanding medical Korean drama The Trauma Code: Heroes On Call (2025) to me and I checked it out on Netflix, not having any idea how addictive it would turn out to be! I watched all eight episodes in one evening! Couldn't tear myself away! I can easily see why its popularity on Netflix is extremely high. At only eight episodes many fans are anticipating a season two, which I really hope will be forthcoming.

Originally based on a web novel called Severe Trauma Center: Golden Hour by Han San, and its webtoon adaptation by Hong Bicira, it captured over 410 million views globally online! The Trauma Code drama was directed by Lee Do Yoon and starred consummate actor Ju Ji Hoon (Jirisan, The Item, Mask) who was the perfect choice to play a doctor with a background working for a clandestine international security agency who returns to Korea to set up an excellent trauma center at a city university hospital. Especially in the first episode he had some great action scenes that could rival the dazzling ones he pulled off at the beginning of the The Item Korean drama, with a runaway train scene worthy of Alfred Hitchcock, one of my top favorite Korean dramas.

Our secondary leads in this excellent medical drama are sweet actor Choo Yeong Woo (Once Upon A Small Town) and the versatile actress Ha Young (Doona, Fix You). They both added a lot of gentle humor to the drama, which of course was filled with many melodramatic medical scenes where patients' lives were at stake and being saved.

The Story:

Expert trauma surgeon Dr. Baek Kang Hyuk (Ju Ji Hoon) joins the medical team at the sprawling Seoul hospital at Hankuk National University and immediately shakes things up, taking over the trauma center emergency room of the hospital, vastly improving its medical success rate, but which costs the hospital millions. Dr. Baek strives for excellence at all costs, which antagonizes the powers that be who control the hospital, including CEO Choi Jo Eun (Kim Eui Sung) and Director Hong Jae Hoon (Kim Won Ae). He also rubs the chairman of the gastroenterology department the wrong way, Doctor Han Yu Rim (Yoon Kyung Ho), especially when he tells him the celadon tea cup he cherishes as a rare antique is a phony rip off. So much for a sense of humor increasing camaraderie among hospital staff! It actually makes them want to get rid of him! Somehow. When complaints are given to the lady director, Kang Myeong Hui (Kim Sun Young, Crash Landing On You), who had picked him out in the first place, she just laughs them off. She knows it will take time for them to recognize and accept his brilliance.

Dr. Baek picks out a rookie doctor as his special trainee in trauma medicine. He is Dr. Yang Jae Won (Choo Yeong Woo) who takes his job seriously but who still obviously has a lot to learn. Dr. Baek favored him when he saw Jae Won running through the hospital hallways numerous times so as not to be late for emergencies. He jokingly gives this doctor the nickname Anus. Jae Won is startled but accepts it as a special idiosyncrasy of this brilliant physician. (It's not until near the end of the drama, when Jae Won has proved his medical worth, that Dr. Baek calls him by his real name and not the nickname).

Dr. Baek also begins to depend upon a very dedicated nurse named Cheon Jang Mi (Ha Young) who will work extra long hours to protect a patient's well being, even donating her own blood when necessary. He also gives her a funny nickname, Gangster, because when he first came on the scene she didn't recognize him as the new doctor on staff but rather thought he was a troublesome intruder. She had also seen a mysterious large tattoo on his arm and mistook him for a thug. So for most of the drama Dr. Baek calls Dr. Jae Won "Anus" and Jang Mi as "Gangster". Even the other medical staff quickly figure out who he is referring to when he uses these nicknames.

Dr. Baek continues to make a name for himself in the media as he works to save patients who are in high profile accidents, for instance when there is a massive pile up car accident on a bridge, with multiple cars wrecked, some even falling off the bridge. Dr. Baek and his trauma team save all the injured, even those near death. He even starts to be acknowledged gratefully by the higher ups at the hospital who had disliked him before, even saving the life of the teenage daughter of that troublesome gastroenterologist Dr. Han Yu Rim. After that miraculous surgery to save her life Dr. Baek can do no wrong in Dr. Yu Rim's eyes! Dr. Baek also sets up a way for grateful communities of people to donate to a charity that can help to put the finances of the overworked trauma center in the black instead of the red.

Then an especially dramatic situation occurs when Dr. Baek is called upon to save the life of a very ill member of the secret international anti-crime agency called Black Wings that he used to work for before he came to the hospital in Seoul. This involves international travel that might indeed risk his own life. Nevertheless, Dr. Jae Won and nurse Jang Mi volunteer to go with him on this dangerous journey, to help save one very important Korean warrior who is near death. Will they be able to succeed and all return to South Korea safely?

The Trauma Code: Heroes On Call is definitely highly recommended. While I watched it I couldn't help but think to myself, "Wow, if every doctor in the world was as dedicated to saving lives as this Dr. Baek is then there would never be any malpractice cases at all!" :)

Hopefully this superb and exciting series will remain on Netflix for a long time to come, and hopefully within the next year or so there will be a season two. It was that great! So refreshing to see a medical drama with no romance or family entanglements to interfere with watching the process of saving lives. Don't miss it. Enjoy.

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