A New Path After Losing Sight in One Eye... Seo Yeon-joo, the ‘Wink Doctor,’ Gives Special Lecture at Kookmin University

[Financial News] The story of a young doctor who returned to the examination room and began caring for underserved patients after losing sight in one eye in an unexpected accident is quietly moving people.
According to Kookmin University on the 14th, internal medicine specialist Seo Yeon-joo spoke to students about overcoming adversity as a guest lecturer at the 669th Kookmin University Thursday Special Lecture, held at the university’s Academic Conference Hall on the 10th. After losing her vision in an accident, Seo returned to the medical field and continued her clinical work and research. She has also been working to make it easier for people with disabilities to visit hospitals. She is widely known by the nickname “Wink Doctor,” given to her by her friends.
Seo explained that she had dreamed of becoming a life sciences researcher as a student, but entered medical school because witnessing the pain of people around her made her want to save lives. However, while working as a doctor, she suddenly lost sight in her left eye in an accident. After being hospitalized as a patient at the hospital where she had worked, rather than standing there as a member of the medical staff, her perspective changed completely. Seo said she came to deeply understand patients’ feelings only after experiencing firsthand the fear and anxiety she had not fully recognized while working as a doctor.
The ordeal became a new starting point rather than an excuse to give up on life. Seo embraced the nickname “Wink Doctor,” given to her by a friend because one of her eyes was closed, in a positive way. She published a book about her treatment and recovery, and after registering as a person with a disability, she took the lead in reducing the difficulties people with disabilities face in hospitals and daily life. She continued overseas medical volunteer work and various public-interest activities before confidently returning as an internal medicine specialist. Seo emphasized that no one knows how life will unfold, but she learned that things can somehow turn out all right in retrospect. She added that new possibilities can be found even on paths different from those originally planned.
For young people concerned about the future, she offered advice on how to approach fear. Seo explained that fear is the anxiety that comes from being unable to see what lies ahead. She said that doing one’s best on matters that can be changed while calmly accepting what cannot be changed had given her great strength during the long recovery process. She added that unexpected changes in life do not necessarily mean one has taken the wrong path. An unplanned path can lead to a broader world that one had never seen before.
The Kookmin University Thursday Special Lecture is a regular course that has hosted weekly lectures by outside speakers for the longest period among Korean universities. Over the past 30 years, about 670 prominent figures from politics, business, academia, culture, and the arts have taken part.

[email protected] Man-ki Kim Reporter