Asan Medical Center

Asan Medical Center (AMC) is the largest hospital in South Korea and one of the highest-volume medical centers in the world. Located in the Songpa-gu district of Seoul, it was established in 1989 by the Asan Foundation, a philanthropic organization founded by Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-yung. The hospital is affiliated with the University of Ulsan College of Medicine and serves as its primary teaching hospital, training the next generation of Korean medical professionals while conducting groundbreaking biomedical research.

With 2,750 beds and more than 12,000 staff members, Asan Medical Center treats over 3 million outpatient visits and performs more than 100,000 surgeries per year, making it one of the busiest hospitals on the planet. The hospital is most internationally renowned for its organ transplant program, which performs the highest number of organ transplants of any single institution in the world. Its liver transplant program alone has completed over 6,000 procedures with survival rates that consistently exceed international benchmarks.

Asan Medical Center holds JCI accreditation and is accredited by the Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation (KOIHA). The hospital's Asan Institute for Life Sciences is one of Asia's leading biomedical research facilities, with state-of-the-art laboratories dedicated to genomics, stem cell research, regenerative medicine, and translational clinical research. AMC researchers publish thousands of peer-reviewed papers annually and participate in hundreds of international clinical trials.

Beyond transplantation, AMC is a recognized leader in cardiac surgery (performing over 5,000 open-heart surgeries), gastric and liver cancer treatment, interventional cardiology, robotic surgery, and advanced diagnostic imaging. The hospital's sheer scale and volume of complex cases have made it a global reference center, with physicians from around the world visiting AMC for training and observation.

Asan Medical Center's International Healthcare Center provides end-to-end support for foreign patients seeking treatment in Seoul. The center offers pre-arrival remote consultations where specialists review medical records and imaging to develop preliminary treatment plans, assistance with medical visa applications and official invitation letters, airport greeting and private transportation to the hospital or nearby hotels, dedicated bilingual coordinators who accompany patients to appointments and serve as the primary point of contact throughout their stay, professional medical interpreters available in English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, and Mongolian, direct billing arrangements with select international insurance providers, comfortable private and VIP rooms designed for international patients, concierge services for accommodation and local logistics, and structured post-treatment follow-up programs including telemedicine consultations with treating physicians after return to the home country.

Asan Medical Center's clinical portfolio is one of the most comprehensive in Asia, anchored by programs that are not merely nationally leading but globally benchmarked. Organ transplantation is AMC's internationally defining program — the hospital performs the world's highest volume of organ transplants across liver (living and cadaveric donor), kidney, heart, lung, pancreas, and combined multi-organ procedures. The liver transplant program alone, with over 6,000 procedures and outcome data published in leading international journals, is the benchmark globally for living donor liver transplantation. Cardiac surgery at the Asan Heart Institute performs over 5,000 open-heart procedures annually, encompassing coronary artery bypass grafting, valve repair and replacement (including minimally invasive and transcatheter valve procedures), aortic surgery, and congenital heart disease repair across all age groups. Interventional cardiology provides coronary angioplasty, structural heart interventions, complex electrophysiology, and left atrial appendage occlusion. Oncology at the Asan Cancer Institute is comprehensive — gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, lung cancer, breast cancer, and haematological malignancies are all managed through multidisciplinary teams that integrate surgical oncology, medical oncology, radiation oncology, and clinical genomics. Gastric cancer surgery volumes at AMC are among the highest globally, reflecting South Korea's high incidence and AMC's accumulated expertise. Neurosurgery covers brain tumors, cerebrovascular disease, epilepsy surgery, and spinal surgery. Orthopaedics, nephrology, pulmonology, paediatrics, urology, and rehabilitation medicine complete the breadth of AMC's clinical coverage.

Asan Medical Center's infrastructure matches its clinical ambition. The hospital operates over 80 operating rooms across its multiple surgical programs — a density of surgical capacity commensurate with its exceptional volume. Dedicated transplant operating suites run around the clock, reflecting the 24-hour nature of organ transplant surgery requiring coordination between living donors, recipient surgical teams, procurement teams, and ICU services. The Asan Heart Institute has hybrid cardiovascular operating rooms combining fluoroscopic imaging with full cardiac surgical capability, enabling complex combined endovascular-open procedures, TAVI, and MitraClip procedures in a single environment. Advanced diagnostic imaging encompasses multiple PET-CT systems, 3T and 1.5T MRI, dedicated cardiac MRI, CT angiography, digital subtraction angiography, and nuclear medicine gamma cameras. The Asan Institute for Life Sciences — AMC's biomedical research facility — houses genomics, proteomics, stem cell, and translational research laboratories that feed directly into clinical trial design and new treatment protocols. Robotic surgery systems including multiple da Vinci platforms support urology, gynaecology, general surgery, and thoracic surgery across the hospital. The cardiac catheterization laboratories number among the highest capacity in Asia. An international patient ward provides private rooms and VIP suites with international amenities and dedicated nursing teams experienced with cross-cultural communication. A blood bank with autotransfusion capability, a comprehensive pharmacy, and extensive rehabilitation facilities complete the infrastructure.

Asan Medical Center holds JCI (Joint Commission International) accreditation — the global gold standard for hospital quality and patient safety, held by fewer than 1,500 hospitals worldwide. JCI accreditation requires rigorous on-site evaluation of clinical processes, patient safety protocols, medication management, infection control, staff qualifications, and governance systems, renewed through periodic re-accreditation surveys. AMC is also accredited by KOIHA (Korea Institute for Healthcare Accreditation), South Korea's national hospital accreditation body modelled on JCI standards, which applies rigorous quality benchmarks to all major Korean hospitals. The Asan Institute for Life Sciences conducts research under Institutional Review Board (IRB) governance and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) guidelines for all clinical trials, certified under Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) regulatory framework. The hospital's affiliation with the University of Ulsan College of Medicine brings academic governance of postgraduate medical education and clinical faculty standards. AMC's transplant program participates in the Korean Network for Organ Sharing (KONOS) framework for organ allocation, governed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The hospital publishes outcome data including transplant survival rates, surgical complication rates, and cancer survival statistics, and its clinical teams regularly present results at major international conferences — providing external validation of clinical performance beyond formal accreditation.