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.
Showing posts with label hiking in korea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hiking in korea. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Them's the Rules
Originally published in The Groove
August 2007
A Stark View
By Tracey Stark
Them’s the rules
Since it’s already more than midway through 2007, I thought it was about time to do my good deed, my selfless act, if you will, for the decade. I figure I’ve lived in the Haebangchan neighborhood for almost a year, so I should give something back.
My project: to clean up a festering pile of trash down the street from my house that had been there for about three months. Now, some people might say, “Why hadn’t the trash collectors cleaned it up yet?” The answer is: because there is a right way and a wrong way to dispose of your rubbish in Seoul. And this was definitely the wrong way.
You see, in Korea there are rules for almost everything you do. Some are actually laws, like the one requiring you to buy special bags for your trash and to sort recyclables and food rubbish as well. And then there are customs, such as the one where women over 50 years old must get a perm and dye their hair. These customs strengthen over time. Ask an ajumma today why she gets a perm and she may not know the answer, but she will assure you that if she doesn’t it will likely result in her death by stoning. When given the choice, in fact (and I have nothing with which to back this assertion), more Koreans will choose customs over laws in almost any circumstance.
For example, while hiking a few summers ago at Soraksan my friends and I stopped to eat our bagged lunches partway up the trail. Not knowing any better, we packed mostly sandwiches and fruit. A large group of locals walked by us very slowly and a murmur began to pass among the hikers. I asked a friend who spoke better Korean than I do what we had done.
“It’s what we didn’t do that has them bothered,” he replied.
“What did we miss?” I pleaded, really worried by this point that a lynch mob was being formed just around the next bend.
“We didn’t pack kimbap,” he said gravely, “and we aren’t wearing black or red clothes.”
Needless to say, we turned back and headed for the car.
On another occasion, I went to a public swimming pool with a few Korean friends. When we got there, they donned swimming caps and jumped in. This is a requirement at pools to prevent great clusters of hair from bunching up and dragging some small child under to his or her death. But I shave my head clean, so I jumped in without a swim cap. Almost immediately a lifeguard summoned me out of the pool and ordered me to put on one of these rubber yarmulkes. I balked and pointed at my bald head, but he wouldn’t budge. “Everyone must wear one,” he said. There was no getting around it. On went the cabesa condom.
But my faux pas don’t stop there.
One morning last autumn I was riding the bus through one of the Namsan tunnels. It was a cool day and I was heading to work, enjoying the morning breeze through my window, which was open about an inch or two. About 100 meters into the tunnel the man behind me literally climbed over me and slammed my window shut. He had a look on his face that said, “You idiot! We could’ve all died from breathing tunnel air!” It’s like that silly game my sister and I played as children during long trips where we would hold our breath when passing a cemetery or lift our feet when crossing railroad tracks. (Well, almost the same except these are adults here.)
After five years, though, I think I’m getting the hang of it, which is why I decided to help someone out who obviously didn’t know any better.
So I bought the biggest trash bag available and headed for the flyblown pile of trash down the street for a little karmic workout. As I separated the tennis shoes from the broken beer bottles an old woman with a bulletproof perm, plaid pants and a floral shirt walked up, stopped for a minute, pointed at me and muttered something about doing outdoor work without wearing white cotton gloves and a vest. Then she walked away shaking her head in disgust.
(I hope she doesn’t report me, because I can’t remember if that one is a custom or a law.)
August 2007
A Stark View
By Tracey Stark
Them’s the rules
Since it’s already more than midway through 2007, I thought it was about time to do my good deed, my selfless act, if you will, for the decade. I figure I’ve lived in the Haebangchan neighborhood for almost a year, so I should give something back.
My project: to clean up a festering pile of trash down the street from my house that had been there for about three months. Now, some people might say, “Why hadn’t the trash collectors cleaned it up yet?” The answer is: because there is a right way and a wrong way to dispose of your rubbish in Seoul. And this was definitely the wrong way.
You see, in Korea there are rules for almost everything you do. Some are actually laws, like the one requiring you to buy special bags for your trash and to sort recyclables and food rubbish as well. And then there are customs, such as the one where women over 50 years old must get a perm and dye their hair. These customs strengthen over time. Ask an ajumma today why she gets a perm and she may not know the answer, but she will assure you that if she doesn’t it will likely result in her death by stoning. When given the choice, in fact (and I have nothing with which to back this assertion), more Koreans will choose customs over laws in almost any circumstance.
For example, while hiking a few summers ago at Soraksan my friends and I stopped to eat our bagged lunches partway up the trail. Not knowing any better, we packed mostly sandwiches and fruit. A large group of locals walked by us very slowly and a murmur began to pass among the hikers. I asked a friend who spoke better Korean than I do what we had done.
“It’s what we didn’t do that has them bothered,” he replied.
“What did we miss?” I pleaded, really worried by this point that a lynch mob was being formed just around the next bend.
“We didn’t pack kimbap,” he said gravely, “and we aren’t wearing black or red clothes.”
Needless to say, we turned back and headed for the car.
On another occasion, I went to a public swimming pool with a few Korean friends. When we got there, they donned swimming caps and jumped in. This is a requirement at pools to prevent great clusters of hair from bunching up and dragging some small child under to his or her death. But I shave my head clean, so I jumped in without a swim cap. Almost immediately a lifeguard summoned me out of the pool and ordered me to put on one of these rubber yarmulkes. I balked and pointed at my bald head, but he wouldn’t budge. “Everyone must wear one,” he said. There was no getting around it. On went the cabesa condom.
But my faux pas don’t stop there.
One morning last autumn I was riding the bus through one of the Namsan tunnels. It was a cool day and I was heading to work, enjoying the morning breeze through my window, which was open about an inch or two. About 100 meters into the tunnel the man behind me literally climbed over me and slammed my window shut. He had a look on his face that said, “You idiot! We could’ve all died from breathing tunnel air!” It’s like that silly game my sister and I played as children during long trips where we would hold our breath when passing a cemetery or lift our feet when crossing railroad tracks. (Well, almost the same except these are adults here.)
After five years, though, I think I’m getting the hang of it, which is why I decided to help someone out who obviously didn’t know any better.
So I bought the biggest trash bag available and headed for the flyblown pile of trash down the street for a little karmic workout. As I separated the tennis shoes from the broken beer bottles an old woman with a bulletproof perm, plaid pants and a floral shirt walked up, stopped for a minute, pointed at me and muttered something about doing outdoor work without wearing white cotton gloves and a vest. Then she walked away shaking her head in disgust.
(I hope she doesn’t report me, because I can’t remember if that one is a custom or a law.)
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