The Early History of Private Education of Western Medicine for Women Women's Medical Training Institute 1928 to 1938

Kee, Chang Duck

Abstract

As early as in the 6th year of King Taejo of the Ch sen Dynasty(1406), there emerged a medical training organization which turned out women doctors who would engage in the treatment of diseases for women and conduct the service of midwifery. Of course the healing art those women doctors adopted at that time was Oriental medicine, and due to the strict Confucian prejudice against women, the medical treatment for women did not go beyond the limit of home treatment. Such being the situation. from the viewpoint of Western medicine, it is hard to say that there existed women doctors in Korea before the advent of the Kyongsong Women's Medical Training Institute. Such social situations and the customs peculiar to the Korean women badly required the existence of women doctors. However, the Ch sen Government-General which was the ruler of the Korean Peninsula at that time, was quite indifferent to the urgent need. In the meantime, Dr. Rosetta S. Hall, an American Methodistic woman doctor, fully aware of these situations through her long experience of medical service for Korean women privately encouraged Korean women to study medicine while personally conducting medical education for them by establishing a medical training institute. At that time, Kil Chung-Hee, a woman doctor, and her husband Dr. Kim Tak-Won actively supported Dr. Hall for educational work for women. They succeeded to the work of operating the training institute established by Dr. Hall and made strenuous efforts to get it elevated to the status of a women's medical college. There was active participation in their undertaking and a committee for the formation of a foundation was organized. When the attainment of the goal was imminent Kim Chong-Ik a man of seat wealth from Sunchon, Chulla South Province, willed a Japanese a large amount of money totaling six hundred and fifty thousand won (three hundred thousand won as a fund for the establishment of a women's medical college and three hundred and fifty thousand won for the starting of a T.B. sanatorium). Thus, the Women's Medical College was opened by the hand of the Japanese. Fortunately, however, the faculty was composed of young and enthusiastic Korean doctors, among whom were professors with great interest in Women's education. This resulted in the illusion to some degree of Korean national spirit into the mind of the students who were forced to receive Japanization education. In consideration of these points, the acquirement of fund for the establishment of the Kyongsong Women's Medical College was made possible by the efforts of Kim Tak-Won who endeavored to promote the Kyongsong Women's Medical Training Institute to the status of a regular college, the activities of the College Establishment Committee and the generosity of Kim Chong-Ik who was moved by the enthusiastic activities of the Committee. In this regard it may not be wrong to say that even though the Kyongsong Women's Medical College was opened by the Japanese due to the requirement of the times, it was a continuation of the Kyongsong Women's Medical Training Institute because the educational philosophy of the professors of the former was the same as that of the professors of the latter.