Doctor Sunwoo Kyeong-sik

Our saint who lived with sick people in the most difficult places,
Meet Seonwoo Gyeong-sik, who lived a life worthy of a doctor using the Hippocratic Oath and the Bible as his guide!

As the economic situation worsens, the difficulties of the poor become greater. So in times like these, we need to embrace the lives of poor and sick people. It is a time when we miss Dr. Seonwoo Gyeong-sik even more, who spent his entire life providing free medical care to poor patients, calling them “the most precious and noble flower buds for a doctor.”
Unfortunately, the life of Director Sunwoo Gyeong-sik has not been well known. Joseph Clinic, where Director Seonwoo Kyeong-sik worked all his life, was a free medical clinic for people who were poor and excluded from the medical insurance system, such as the homeless and pedestrians, and he was also the type of person who did not like to take action on his own. However, the more divided and difficult times our society is, the more the lives of people like Director Seonwoo Gyeong-sik should be highlighted.
Director Seonwoo Gyeong-sik's life has been known only through documentaries and articles from broadcasting companies. Lee Chung-ryeol, a master of Korean biographical literature who wrote “Gansong Jeon Hyeong-pil,” “Ah, Cardinal Kim Soo-hwan,” and “Father Lee Tae-seok,” contemplates the life of a doctor and is deeply moved by the life of Seonwoo Kyeong-sik, a saint of our time who lived for the poor and sick. He accepted it and wrote “Doctor Seonwoo Gyeongsik.” This book is the official and only biography of Joseph Clinic (Joseph Sharing Foundation) approved by the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul.

Vividly drawn by Lee Chung-ryeol, a master of biographical literature
The life of director Seonwoo Gyeong-sik, the ‘saint of a small village’

After choosing a career as a doctor, Seonwoo Kyeong-sik works at a hospital and encounters the harsh reality of having to turn away patients who cannot receive treatment due to lack of money. Disappointed by this, he moved to the United States, where there was no refusal to treat poor emergency patients, and worked as a specialist, but he refused to live a life as a well-paid American doctor and returned to Korea. After her return to Korea, she found her own path through medical service at St. Francis Clinic and the Sillim-dong House of Love. She found her path as a doctor who loved poor patients like friends and became their neighbors. To achieve this, she realized that poor local residents needed a hospital where they could receive medical care, and decided to form a union to establish the hospital. However, a huge amount of financial resources were needed to establish the hospital, and Seonwoo Kyeong-sik meets Cardinal Kim Soo-hwan and asks for help. Cardinal Kim helped the Seoul Catholic Social Welfare Association become an affiliated organization and was able to secure financial resources through fundraising. Joseph Clinic, which was established after many difficulties, moved from Sillim-dong to its current Yeongdeungpo location and established itself as a free hospital for poor patients. Because it was a free hospital, people around me asked, “How can we run it?” Although he heard concerns that “it would be difficult to survive for more than three months,” Seonwoo Gyeong-sik overcame these difficulties with strong will and faith and laid the foundation for an exemplary free hospital.
However, because it was a free hospital, there were many homeless people, pedestrians, and patients with alcoholism. Seonwoo Kyeong-sik is also human, so when a person who thought the treatment went well came back to the hospital drunk again, he felt skeptical and suffered. Each time, he pulled himself together, saying, 'The virtue that is more important and necessary for a doctor than medical skills is the heart that loves patients and the heart that does not give up on patients.' Rather, what was more difficult was securing the necessary finances for the hospital. As the number of patients increases explosively due to the IMF and management becomes more difficult, Seonwoo Kyungsik overcomes the difficulties by organizing a support group and holding charity concerts.
“More than anything, if the reality of poverty was a gift that awakened me, it was the realization that the patients among patients, the patients who are the most precious and noble flower buds for doctors, are poor people. “They were the ones who needed me and invited me to this position at Joseph Clinic.”
Seonwoo Gyeong-sik, who never married and provided free medical care throughout his life, died at the age of 2008 in 63 after suffering from acute cerebral infarction and stomach cancer and working hard to help patients until the end.
This book is not intended to praise the life of Director Sunwoo Gyeong-sik. Rather, it calmly shows the life of a person who worries about the profession of 'doctor' and tries to live as the 'true doctor' he believes. These days, when life is becoming more difficult and interest in others is decreasing, the life of doctor Seonwoo Kyeong-sik will have a big impact on us.

※ All royalties from this book will be donated to Joseph Clinic, Joseph Sharing Foundation.