Sol Hospital, Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinic: Giving injured athletes a sporting chance

Originally published in Seoul Magazine, August 2007

Giving injured athletes a sporting chance
By Tracey Stark


From the outside, this unassuming eight-story building in the southern part of Seoul gives the impression of just another health clinic. But step into the waiting room and you will be greeted by a wall covered with a dozen pictures of Dr. Na Young-moo in action, some showing him tending to the Korean National Soccer Team during the 2002 World Cup.

Another noticeable difference from other hospitals is that you won’t hear anyone coughing, because the Sol Hospital, Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinic specializes in physical and mental rehabilitation for athletes and regular citizens alike who have suffered an injury or were born with a disability.

While serving as the team doctor for the Korean National Soccer Team in 2002 Dr. Na, at the time a physical rehabilitation specialist at Yonsei Severance Hospital, had an epiphany. Coach Gus Hiddink flew in a team of sports medicine specialists for the games. Up until that time, Dr. Na says, “There was no such thing as ‘sports medicine’ in Korea.” Athletes here relied on a blend of massage therapy, physical training and traditional Korean and Chinese medicine and techniques. He learned a lot from the western doctors and immediately set out to qualify as a sports medicine specialist.

Dr. Na was determined to combine the two areas of medicine and in June 2003 he opened Korea’s first clinic specializing in sports medicine.

A well-published doctor and the vice chairman of the medical committee for the Korean Football Association, Dr. Na is known throughout Korea’s athletic community. Professional athletes who hurt themselves while training or competing will come from as far away as Jeju to get what they consider the best sports medicine treatment in Korea.

More than 100 patients come through the doors each day for a variety of problems. Many of the hospital’s 3,000 regular patients are athletes with injuries, but a large portion of them come for frequent rehabilitation treatments to help them recover from serious accidents or the effects of aging, which have left them injured or disabled.

Each floor offers different services. On one floor is a room used for occupational therapy to help people regain at least some semblance of a normal life by re-teaching them basic tasks necessary to get through each day. In another room there are physical therapists working with patients with every level of injury and disability on various platforms and machines. And in yet another room, therapists use state-of-the-art techniques and equipment for pain control and mobility.

On a separate floor are athletes of different ages working out with the assistance of physical trainers in a gym on weight machines, treadmills and stationary bikes. One young man is jumping one-footed from a trampoline to a bench and back again. Not an easy feat, but an exercise said to greatly improve his balance as a soccer player.

Across the hall are more physical trainers working with young athletes – most in their teens – doing more traditional exercises for strength and flexibility. One boy does sit-ups holding a heavy ball over his head and places it between his knees with his feet off the floor. A tall girl sits up straight in a stool and repeatedly stretches a length of rubber cord back, using only her triceps. She is a volleyball player strengthening her spiking and serving arm. In all, the room has at least 10 young athletes, each with a clipboard nearby with a “prescription” of exercises to conquer any weaknesses they may have in relation to their sport.

“Korean culture is go, go, go,” says Young Lae-nah, the head of public relations for the hospital. “Parents want their children to be great athletes, so they send them here for training and assessment. Some of them come six days a week for six hours a day.” Although these children may not be injured, they come to Sol Hospital to get better.

The facility boasts 70 beds for overnight stays, lab facilities and high-tech scanning equipment such as a CT scanner and a digital infrared thermal imaging (DITI) machine. The hospital is staffed by four doctors, 25 certified physical therapists, a chiropractor, eight personal trainers and a nutrition team. These professionals are assisted by a constantly moving hive of nurses, assistants and receptionists, keeping the hospital running smoothly.

Dr. Na’s plans for the future include a school for sports medicine in Korea, but for now his clinic in Banghwa 2-dong, Gangseo-gu, southern Seoul keeps him and his team busy learning and applying the latest techniques in sports medicine and rehabilitation therapy.