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Twins celebrate third birthday

 Ann, left, and Ellen welcome another year full of fun and adventure as they celebrate their third birthday.  By Jane Han Dear Ellen and Ann,I know this is much too cliche, but time really does fly.I can’t believe we’re already here celebrating your third birthday.Where did my fragile and tiny twin babies go? What happened to my fearlessly crawling and cruising toddlers?Now I have Ann pointing out to me, “Mom, your shirt is dirty,” while Ellen casually pours herself a cup of water straight from the purifier.Hands-down impressive.You girls have come quite a long way, and your father and I can’t stop marveling over how much you two have grown, how well you can speak, how hilariously you interact with each other ― and also with random people at the grocery store ― and just how you two simply are every day.Sometimes your big-girl look and talk comes off so naturally to me that I make the mistake of forgetting that you are, after all, still little girls.Yes, of course you are.You two have only been on this earth for three measly years.Ann,

Jul 5, 2016
Twins celebrate third birthday

Repairing the body's most complex joint

/Courtesy of Kyung Hee University HospitalRhee pioneers advanced shoulder surgery in KoreaBy Jung Min-ho, Kim Eil-chulThe shoulder is considered the most complicated and unstable joint in the human body. Composed of bones, ligaments, muscles and tendons, it is the only joint capable of moving in every direction.Despite the shoulder’s unique characteristics, however, the field of shoulder surgery was not yet recognized in Korea 25 years ago. Orthopedic surgeons, who were largely trained for knee joint problems, took care of all orthopedic patients.Studying the relatively unexplored area was a major decision for orthopedist Rhee Yong-girl, who had never doubted his future as a knee specialist until 1991. Looking back, however, the 61-year-old now clearly sees how important the decision was for his career and the country.At first, few of his colleagues took his decision seriously. Many thought he had no reason to choose a struggle over a straight and easy road. Under the mentorship of Yoo Myung-chul, one of the nation’s best orthopedic surgeons at that time, Rhee seemed to b

Jul 3, 2016
Repairing the body's most complex joint

Dentists launch 'Denture Day' as insurance coverage expands

The local dental association said Friday it has designated July 1 as Denture Day, timed with revised state health insurance coverage going into effect.The coverage for dentures has been widened to people over 65 from the former 70 as of Friday, halving the cost for those individuals to receive a set of artificial teeth. According to the Korean Academy of Prosthodontics, one out of two Koreans aged 65 or older use dentures.The academy said dental clinics and hospitals will mark the day with free seminars and promotional giveaways."In 2012, state health insurance coverage for dentures became available for people 75 or older as of July 1. This year, it was expanded to people 65 or older as of July 1," Heo Seong-joo, the chief of the academy, said in explaining the choice of the date for Denture Day. "We plan to hold a full-fledged event participated by the public and the dental community to help promote oral health."According to the academy who surveyed denture users last year, close to 70 percent of them did know about proper care. (Yonhap)

Jul 1, 2016

Experts group to help medical institutions go abroad

State health agencies said Friday they have launched a group of specialists to effectively assist South Korea's medical institutions get established in foreign countries.The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Health industry Development Institute (KHIDI) are working together in operating the "Global Healthcare Key Opinion Leaders" (GHKOL) and has selected 47 members for the group that will provide consultations on legal, commercial and financial matters specific to individual countries, officials said. The members, formally appointed on Friday, organized a session on China on the same day, briefing the participants on strategies and the latest trends in China's health care industry.Institutions planning to expand overseas can apply for the group's assistance, and consulting fees will be paid for by KHIDI."The specialist members of GHKOL will ease the burdens of medical institutions who want to go overseas, and at the same time help smaller and regionally based institutions actively seek expansion in other countries," the health ministry said. (Yonhap)

Jul 1, 2016

Late-night smartphone use may cause temporary blindness

Two women went temporarily blind after looking at their smartphones in bed. /Courtesy of TwitterBy Lee Jin-aTwo British women became temporarily blind while using their smartphones in the dark, according to a study published Thursday.London-based researchers said that in unrelated events, the women were watching their phones while lying on their left side in bed and using only their right eye to watch the screen. A pillow covered their left eye.Once the women put their phones down, their right eye, after it had adapted to the brightness of the screen, went blind until it had time to adjust.The blindness disappeared when they looked at their phones again with both eyes while in the dark.The longest period of blindness was about 15 minutes.Researchers found the same effect when they deliberately re-created the conditions."People frequently use smartphones while lying down, when one eye can be inadvertently covered," said the study report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine."Hence, presentations such as we describe are likely to become more frequent. Our cases show that ta

Jun 26, 2016
Late-night smartphone use may cause temporary blindness

The era of all-powerful doctors is over

/ Courtesy of Seoul National University Bundang Hospital‘Opinion leaders are losing ground in the era of evidence-based medicine’By Jung Min-ho, Kim Eil-chulThere was a time when some big-name doctors had enormous influence in medical circles in Korea. However, as the nation’s medicine moves toward an evidence-based era, they are increasingly losing ground, a renowned neurosurgeon said.“The emergence of evidence-based medicine means that the time of heroic tales of a few great doctors is over,” Oh Chang-wan, director of the Clinical Neuroscience Center at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH), said in an interview.“The opinions of so-called ‘star doctors’ used to matter much when Korea had no one else to rely on, but today, doctors are using evidence from clinical research to make the best possible medical decisions for patients. What matters now is only the facts.”Evidence-based medicine is an approach that emphasizes the use of research data rather than experience. For example, clinical data collected from stroke pa

Jun 26, 2016
The era of all-powerful doctors is over

(333) What can heal your mind in absence of religion and value?

By Janet Shin To begin with, a great difference lies in the cognition of ‘chaos’ between the Eastern and Western cultures. The latter is interspersed with anti-sentiment toward chaos. The Enlightenment in the history of Western intelligence involves human rationality, empiricism, science, universalism, progress, individualism and freedom. One of the major concerns of the Enlightenment thinkers was to suspect things around humans in order to correctly perceive ‘the thing itself’, which are divided into two. One can actually be detected through our five senses while the other can only be perceived mentally, such as spirits, the universe and the gods. Owing to the astronomic discoveries of Kepler and Copernicus in the 16th and 17th centuries about the universe, the traditional cosmologies were challenged by empirical science and people became aware of human capability based on reason and rationality by eliminating unscientific belief systems such as superstition and religious ideology. The other major aspect that they couldn’t abide by was ch

Jun 23, 2016
(333) What can heal your mind in absence of religion and value?

Celebrating dad on Father's Day

Dad and the three girls take a stroll through the neighborhood as they debate which ice cream flavoris the best. By Jane HanHere in the U.S., today is Father’s Day, that time of the year when we get to celebrate dads for all the wonderful things they do.Just three years ago, the only father I closely knew and loved was my own father. Loving, patient, sweet and kind, he was and still is the best dad a girl could ever ask for.But now, three years later, after the birth of my three daughters, there is another father who stepped into my life ― my husband. A man who used only to be my husband is now a special dad to our three children.Seeing the guy who once claimed he did not like kids transform into a father of not just one, not two, but three children, including a set of twins and then another one only a year apart, has been quite interesting in itself.People who know my husband know that he can come off as a pretty serious and rigid individual. You’d be lucky to catch a joke coming out of him.But just earlier this morning, I saw him playing a combination of hide-and-s

Jun 21, 2016
Celebrating dad on Father's Day

Acne treatment begins from within

Lee Sung-hun By Lee Sung-hun It is only June, but we have already seen days with the temperature going above 30 degrees Celsius.This rising temperature is unwelcome news to those with acne troubles.It is said that with every 1 degree rise in the ambient temperature, there is about a 10 percent increase in sebum production.What this means is that in the summer heat, increased sebum secretion and sweating can block pores which can lead to an acne break out.Depending on the age of the acne breakout, acne cases are divided into either teen (prior to 25, slightly older than the typical “teen” age) acne or adult (after 25) acne.Approximately 75 percent of adult acne is simply continued from their adolescent days, while the rest is independent of it.Teen acne occurs because those teen years (generally coinciding with puberty) are when the body has overabundant yang-qi that causes heat to accumulate, and combined with the overproduction of sebum from hormonal changes, it is almost like a perfect storm for small inflammations leading to acne.Teen acne tends to break out

Jun 21, 2016
Acne treatment begins from within

Korea bats carry viruses similar to MERS, study shows

Korea bats carry viruses similar to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a study found. /YonhapBy Lee Jin-aResearchers have found viruses similar to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in bats in Korea.A joint research team from the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) and Korea University said on Monday that they had found viruses similar to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and MERS.It was the first time these viruses have been found in bats in Korea, even though similar cases have been reported in China, Taiwan and Europe.The researchers analyzed 49 feces of bats in 11 habitats from July to December last year.“There is a small possibility that humans can be infected with the viruses from the bats,” said KRIBB researcher Kim Hye-kwon.“However, we need to monitor the viruses constantly because they are genetically similar to the infectious diseases.”The report was published in the May edition of the international medical journal, "Transboundary and Emergi

Jun 20, 2016
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