Doctor receives award for dedication to lepers
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Dr. Kim In-kwon
By Yoon Ja-young
Dr. Kim In-kwon has been awarded for his care of patients of Hansen’s disease, or leprosy, and others with disabilities. He’s been selected as the winner of the Seongcheon Prize awarded by the JW Foundation, a nonprofit run by the pharmaceutical JW Group, to recognize those offering medical services for the underprivileged.
The foundation said that he was selected for his contributions to improving the human rights of the underprivileged as well as for their rehabilitation.
As a graduate of Seoul National University’s medical school, Kim had an affluent and cozy life guaranteed. However, he gave up that life and volunteered to work at the national hospital for leprosy patients on Sorokdo, an island in Goheung County, South Jeolla Province, where lepers were kept isolated for nearly a century.
The young doctor was accompanied by his wife and their daughter who was only two months old when they left for the island in 1980. His friends and family thought it would be okay for him to spend a few years serving there at the start of a long career that he was to build as a doctor, but he came to dedicate his whole life there.
He moved to Wilson Leprosy Center and Rehabilitation Center in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, in 1983, where he has been treating patients there since then. The hospital, close to Sorokdo, dates back to 1909 when a clinic for leprosy patients was built with donations from the United States’ Southern Presbyterian Church.
“I thought that these patients who were marginalized from society would need me the most,” the doctor said, explaining why he chose to stay with the leprosy patients.
The doctor, who specializes in orthopedics, had been focusing on treating patients suffering from leprosy and polio, but he switched to artificial joint surgery in the mid-1990s. While the number of leprosy and polio patients decreased thanks to vaccinations and medical advances, he noted that many elderly patients in the nearby rural area were suffering from degenerative arthritis and couldn’t get treatment due to financial problems. He started performing artificial joint surgeries for underprivileged patients at minimal fees, and around 3,000 underprivileged arthritis patients receive surgery at the hospital every year.
The 66-year-old doctor reached the official age of retirement in March, but he is continuing to treat dozens of patients daily as a director emeritus. The ceremony to honor him is scheduled next month at The Westin Chosun Seoul.