Thirty Years of Growth
It is tomorrow in Korea. Their time is thirteen hours ahead of our summer eastern time. So on Monday, May 2, I left New York with two friends, going to the 50th reunion of (wartime) medical school graduates from Severance Union Medical School in Seoul, Korea. On Tuesday evening we arrived in the new Incheon International Airport, built by joining islands off the coast of Incheon. We boarded one of the clean, convenient, comfortable buses which travel on the eight-lane new highway and brought us to the new Lotte Hotel near the Duck Soo Palace in downtown Seoul, just a few blocks from our Methodist Mission offices. There in the "like a palace" lobby welcoming me were my angel "social secretary," Mrs. Soon-Hee Lee-Hong, and Dr. Kyung-Sik Kim, a hepatic surgeon from the Yonsei University Medical College. As is the custom, he was to make sure all went well during my visit. At our registration on the 27th floor in the "club area," Dr. and Mrs. Yoon-Soon Kim (he had worked with my brother in postgraduate study in Omaha, NE) were waiting to welcome me. In the post-modern hotel room a beautiful basket of flowers from Dr. Seung-Kook Sohn, chairman of the department of surgery at Yonsei University (YUMC), added to the welcome. We were welcomed again and again. The next morning our group of overseas guests, invited to the dedication of the new twenty-one stories, 1004 patient bed Severance Hospital, were taken to the Yanghwajin, the Foreigner’s Cemetery. The name is derived from the Hans River ferry landing at an historic military site where massive Catholic executions took place in 1839 and 1866. There hundreds of foreigners, many of them good friends with whom I lived and worked, were buried. The Special City of Seoul now protects this lovely site where it is building a large rock and flower garden.
In the afternoon we attended the dedication services for the new Severance Hospital. The ceremony was held at the front of the base of the huge hospital where more than a thousand guests thronged together on a beautiful cloudless afternoon. Hospital patients peered down through the windows. Along the area borders were multiple huge (six feet high) flower frames with congratulation ribbons. Addresses were given by several dignitaries. Perhaps the most listened to was given in Korean by General Leon J. LaPorte of the U.S. Eighth Army. The original Severance Hospital at Yonsei University was built after the Korean War with the help of the U.S. Eighth Army as a memorial to the U.S. soldiers who gave their lives for Korea.
My invitation came from Dr. Hoon-Sang Chi, Vice President for Medical Affairs of Yonsei University, whom I’d known as a surgical resident. He had invited grandchildren of the Avison and Severance families along with those of the architect of the original Severance Hospital built near the south gate of the city in the early 1900's. It was a wonderful example of a culture which remembers and honors its past.
That evening at a delicious dinner at the Grand Hilton we were shown the plans for future development. In an area which has no more land available, long-term plans involve the removal of outdated three-four story buildings with their replacement by high rise contemporary structures built to meet future needs.
Subsequently it was possible to meet many dear and very precious friends, many of whom like me are retired to other opportunities. Everywhere I saw beauty. Every inch of available soil is used for food production and flower growing. The countryside is lined with long plastic greenhouses so that a much greater variety of diet is now available.
It was a special thrill to ride the KTX, the 100 miles per hour new train for the forty-nine minute trip to Deajeon (we called it Taejon) which used to take many hours. Delightful joy included meeting President In-Ryung Shin of Ewha Women’s University and Dr. Bock-Hi Woo, a former medical student, who became Vice President of the Ewha Medical Center and is now chairman of the Ewha University Board.
My escorts, Dr. John and Susie Hong of New York, had been the first heads of the Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Pediatric department of our Wonju Union Christian Hospital, which is now the Yonsei University Wonju Medical College and Hospital. Having been at the original hospital ground breaking in the early sixties, it was a happy experience for me to see the tremendous development of that institution along with its contemporary area emergency medical services and excellent communications.
A very delightful day was spent with Mrs. Young Nai Kim-Kang, the widow of Dr. S. B. Kang. He developed the Incheon Christian Hospital and the Ann San University for the training of health science workers. The Lord has done great work through His servants there, many are helped by their Christian witness, and we are very thankful. The whole experience was one of many blessings, joys, delights and happiness, and I give daily thanks to our Lord for His gift of a wonderful lifetime experience along with thanks for all the many persons who helped make it possible. I saw some of the many miracles accomplished by dedicated Christian servants and again and again say, "Praise our Lord and Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!"
–Roberta G. Rice, M.D.