Founder of medical empire pens memoir

By Do Je-hae

Stories of self-made women in Korea are rare. Many female CEOs in the chaebol system have been family members of the founders.

The story of Lee Gil-ya, chairwoman of the Gachon Gil Foundation, is refreshing because her success came out of nowhere.

Everything she owns — hospitals, universities, research centers, newspaper, museum, among others — are products of her own hard work and vision.

A gynecologist by training, Lee is one of the most successful female doctors. The 80-year-old rarely speaks to the press, but she has been author of several publications during the course of a career that has spanned almost 50 years.

A new autobiography was published this month, with a focus on her latest pet project — the Gachon University.

Gachon University in Gyeonggi Province was established last year as a result of a merger between two schools — the Gachon University of Medicine and Science (GUMS) and Kyungwon University.

Lee’s feats in the medical world are well-known, having founded the first hospital as a female doctor in 1978.

Founded in 1998, GUMS runs one of the Korea’s best neuroscience research institutes under the supervision of Dr. Jo Jang-hee, a distinguished scholar, while it also established the Lee Gil Ya Cancer and Diabetes Institute in the Incheon Free Economic Zone.

Like many people of her generation who have made something of themselves, Lee was driven by patriotism to do something for a war-torn country.

A graduate of the college of medicine at Seoul National University, she went on to practice at Mary Immaculate Hospital and Queen’s Hospital Center in New York. She enjoyed a successful practice there, but unlike many U.S.-trained doctors among her peers, Lee returned to Korea because of the “lingering thoughts of a homeland in poverty.”

“My life has been about two things — medicine and education. When I first became a doctor in the 1950s, the reality facing doctors and patients was extremely difficult,” Lee recalled in the preface.

This was a time when people were too poor to afford hospital bills. When she first opened her own clinic in 1958, she treated some patients free of charge. That clinic became the foundation for the hospitals and research centers she would later establish.

While medical facilities are the core of the Gachon Gil Foundation, Lee has been more focused on her job as an educator in the capacity of president of Gachon University. “Education was not my initial calling, but once I started to found schools, I became passionate about education. Nurturing the next generation is one of the most patriotic efforts.”

Universities located outside Seoul have been shunned by students, but Lee wants to see the school grow into one of the top 10 universities in the Seoul-Gyeonggi Province area by 2020.

In the book, she talks about measures to improve competitiveness of the teaching staff and programs to elevate the students’ English skills.

Gachon University runs a campus in Hawaii, where around 500 students are sent for a six-month program to study and learn English.

At 80, she says she is still excited about her jobs and maintains her health by walking.

Because the book is mostly about how she built a medical and educational empire, some parts of the book seem irrelevant, like a chapter where she talks about why she still remains single.

Except for this, the book is a moving story of self-made success and particularly relevant to young girls starting college in March and looking for a female role model.