The rural village of Ipam-Dong in which CHANG KEE-RYO was born on August 14, 1911, is in Yongchoen county, Pyonganbuk province, in the northwestern portion of what is now North Korea. At that time all of Korea was under Japanese rule. CHANG's grandfather was a well-to-do landowner and his father managed some of the family rice fields, receiving as pay a percentage of the harvest. CHANG's grandmother and his parents were devout Christians who belonged to the Presbyterian community which was very active in their area. The first Protestant missionaries had entered Korea only 28 years before CHANG's birth and had made numerous converts in the northern provinces.

CHANG, the third child and second boy of the four children of Chang Wun-seop and Choi Yoon-kyung, was a frail child and unable to compete in the rough and tumble play of other boys. His grandmother raised him for the first seven years of his life, carrying him on her back to church and praying over him with other members of the congregation whenever he had even a minor illness. Pampered but sensitive, he was always praised by his family for being bright and for following Christian precepts. His earliest memories are of Bible stories he heard in Sunday School, and he wanted to grow up to be like the Biblical heroes Joseph and David.

The boy had a tender conscience which led him to suffer agonies of repentance after childish misconduct. He remembers when he was about five playing with a group of boys who were spinning tops. Eager to win, he slyly stole the superior top of another child, protested that it was his own and won the game. Soon after when he was at a church revival meeting he was so stricken with remorse when he heard the pastor preaching against the crime of theft that he made a tearful public confession of his sin and begged for forgiveness. His devoted grandmother noted the child's precocious sense of morality, and in her prayers she referred to him as her keumkang seok .(diamond) and asked that he would grow up dedicated to God and the service of his country.

CHANG's father was a scholar of the Chinese classics, as was appropriate to a man of his station, and a volunteer teacher. The boy's first schooling was in the Euisong Elementary School, a Christian school which his father had founded and in which he taught Bible classes. CHANG excelled in school, particularly in mathematics, but when he entered Songdo Middle School in Kae-seong in 1924 his interest in his studies waned and he wasted his time playing tennis during the day and cards at night.

While he was in Kae-seong his grandfather died and his father took over the management of the family lands. The family fortune began to diminish and land had to be sold as his father, more the scholar than the administrator or farmer, fell into debt. By his third year of middle school CHANG became aware of the sacrifices which were being made by his family. Remorsefully he prayed for forgiveness for his thoughtlessness and promised to honor his parents and rededicate himself to leading a Christian life. He was baptized at the age of 16 and determined to emulate the life of Jesus to the best of his ability.

At the time of his graduation from Songdo High School in 1928 CHANG abandoned his first ambition to become a teacher and decided to study engineering, but he failed the entrance examination for Yosoon Technical College (in Manchuria). As his family's financial situation was deteriorating, he decided to return to his village and teach in the elementary school founded by his father. On his return he again changed his mind and announced that he wished to study medicine. To save money he applied to the least expensive Korean medical school, the newly formed Keijo (the Japanese name for Seoul) Medical College. Before taking his entrance examination he made a vow that if he were admitted he would do his best without stint and would serve the poor when he became a doctor. He passed the examination and entered the college in 1928.

The city of Seoul was a revelation to the unsophisticated CHANG. He made his first trip by train, used a telephone for the first time, and in his third year of medical school attended his first motion picture. True to his promise to pursue his studies diligently, his only diversions in his first two years of college were membership in the Seoul YMCA and an occasional game of soccer. He stood fourth in his class in his first year and rose to first by his senior year. During his third year he met the famous Korean Protestant minister, Whang Jee-kyung, who encouraged him to continue studying the Bible. CHANG also met an American professor who provided him with his first experience of eating Western food and observing Western table manners.

During his last months in medical school CHANG was urged by friends to marry a girl they considered an ideal match for him. Kim Bong-suk was the daughter of an internist who was then studying for his Ph.D. She lived nearby, was a Christian of impeccable character, and was accomplished in art, music and the womanly skills of stitchery. CHANG was a reluctant suitor, dreaming of a romantic passion for a beautiful woman he had yet to meet. He finally consented to write a letter of proposal but insisted on making it clear that his prospective bride must be a devout Presbyterian, that she must devote herself to his parents, and that she and her family could expect no financial help from him while he was continuing his studies. His contractual proposal was accepted and the couple were married on April 9, 1932.

CHANG graduated from medical college the same year but felt he was unprepared to practice without further diagnostic training and specialization. His first thought was to study ophthalmology but one of his Japanese professors advised him to try something more challenging and he switched to internal medicine; he later changed his proposed field of specialization to surgery at the urging of his father-in-law who was looking forward to establishing a joint practice with his daughter's husband as surgeon and himself as internist.

CHANG's father sold a piece of land to provide money for a graduation present and for his continued education. With this gift CHANG bought his first Western-style suit of clothes, but could not bring himself to spare money to purchase his college yearbook. He was the only student out of the ninety graduates of his class who never owned this precious memento of his college days.

Living with his wife's family to conserve money, CHANG studied and worked as an assistant to Dr. Baek In-ji, a renowned Korean surgeon. His beginning salary was 10 won a month, rising to 80 won per month after four years, but his salary was never enough, especially after his father-in-law left the city to practice medicine elsewhere and he had to bring his own parents to Seoul and support them. His first child, a son, was born in 1933. During these years of extreme financial hardship CHANG's wife did all she could to help the family—borrowing money, giving up all her outside interests, and serving as a dutiful daughter-in-law to his parents. CHANG's mother proved to be difficult to please as she was resentful of the loss of her son's attentions, but CHANG's wife never failed to live up to the contract she had accepted at her marriage in which she promised to honor her in-laws.

CHANG felt himself fortunate to work with Baek who was considered to be the best teacher in the profession. Baek, in turn, became so impressed with his young assistant's capabilities that he considered him as his logical successor at the medical school. He was therefore understandably upset when in 1940, just before completion of his work on his Ph.D., CHANG decided to put his Christian principles into action and left Seoul to become Chief of Surgery in Pyongyang's Union Christian Hospital. In Pyongyang he completed his thesis entitled "Bacteriological Studies on Appendicitis." With the help of Baek he submitted the work and was granted a doctorate from Nagoya Imperial University in Japan in September 1940.

When the American director of the Union Christian Hospital left that same year to return to the United States, CHANG was appointed in his place. He entered a hornet's nest of dissension and intrigue involving the assistant director of the hospital and the hospital accountant. When CHANG reproached them for not working together, they united and turned on him and, gaining the support of the hospital staff and the board of trustees, ousted him from the directorship. CHANG returned to his work as chief of surgery and attempted to weather the storm by devoting himself to his job, relying on his Christian faith. During the ten months of controversy and bitterness at the hospital before calm and order were restored, CHANG recognized in himself a growing love and appreciation for his loyal and uncomplaining wife. When he wonderingly asked her why she was "so good to him," he was surprised to learn that she considered him the "best looking man in the whole world." His newly awakened love and the solace of their shared Christian belief would sustain CHANG's devotion to his wife throughout the difficult years of separation ahead, and bolster his absolute faith that they would remain spiritually united in life and in death.

The new director of the hospital, Dr. Kim Kyung Sun, became one of CHANG's admirers, granting him the highest bonuses given staff members for outstanding work. Kim even suggested that CHANG move into the house reserved for the hospital director because the altruistic surgeon had given so much of his salary to help others that he could afford only the most modest living accommodations for his family, which then consisted of his parents, his wife and four children (a second son born in 1935, a daughter in 1940 and another daughter in 1942; later there would be two more children, a son and daughter born in 1947 and 1949 respectively).

CHANG remained at the Union Christian Hospital throughout World War II (1941-1945). During these years he contributed articles to medical journals in Korea and Japan. He became interested in liver cancer and, although surgery had not been considered an option up to that time, he pioneered an operation for the condition involving a wedge resection for a peripherally located malignancy. The successful results, however, were not published. He also intensified his Christian commitment, especially after he met Ham Souk Hun, the author who has been called the "Gandhi of Korea," and who became his lifelong friend. Ham helped solidify CHANG's belief that it was a Christian's first responsibility to save his own soul through good works before he could save the souls of others.

After the defeat of Japan in 1945 and the subsequent occupation of Pyongyang by Russian troops, Baek asked CHANG to return to Seoul (south of the 38th parallel and in the American sector) to teach at the Medical College. But CHANG felt that his work was at the Christian Hospital and that he should not leave, even though, as the communists tightened their grip over the north, they began trying to undermine the Christian churches. About this time CHANG contracted hepatitis and had to spend a month at a hot springs to recuperate. Recovering, he was asked to teach at Kim Il-sung University, named for the new communist head of state of North Korea. He at first refused on the grounds that he did not feel qualified to teach, that he was not a Marxist, and that he could not, as a Christian, work on Sunday since it was a day of worship. His refusal was brushed aside by the university vice president who countered each of the reasons, stating that no Korean had ever been considered qualified as a teacher under Japanese rule, that his deficiencies as a non-Marxist could be corrected by reading books which the vice president confidently declared would make him a communist within a year, and that he would not be required to work on Sundays.

In consequence CHANG took on the post at the university in addition to his position as chief ofsurgery at the hospital, but he failed to become a communist. He continued his habit of praying before he started operating and openly answered his students' questions about his Christian faith. Although there were recurrent rumors that all Christians were to be expelled from the university, the communist administrators tended to leave the hardworking CHANG alone, even rewarding him with a doctorate and raising his salary to 7,000 won a month. These tokens of appreciation, however, did not win CHANG to the administration's political orientation and he and some of the other Christian doctors began to consider the possibility of leaving Pyongyang for South Korea.

Although CHANG himself did not suffer from communist restrictions, his first son, Taek-yong, was not allowed to graduate from middle school because he would not attend class on Sundays. Instead he learned pharmacy as an apprentice, later passing a qualifying examination after finishing a training course in pharmacology while working.

When the North Koreans invaded South Korea in June 1950, the 17 year old boy was drafted into the North Korean army and made an officer.

When during the course of the war the North Korean troops were forced to retreat from Pyongyang, CHANG was ordered to accompany them, but at the last moment was left behind. He continued working in the hospital where food and necessities were provided by the occupying United Nations forces. Then when the combined Chinese and North Korean armies in turn forced the UN troops to evacuate Pyongyang in December 1950, CHANG and his second son, Ka-yong, were taken aboard a bus headed for the south. As they passed through the streets of Pyongyang CHANG caught an agonizing glimpse of his wife and one of his daughters, but the bus could not stop to open its doors without being overwhelmed by the press of desperate refugees trying to climb on board, and the women were swept out of sight by the crowd. Later CHANG was told that his family had tried to walk to the south but had been turned back. Except in dreams CHANG has neither seen nor heard from his family or his parents since.

The bus carried father and son to the Dae Dong river where they alighted and walked to Kae-seong to board a train which took them to Seoul, and finally to safety in Pusan, where CHANG immediately set out to look for a place to work with the refugees, many of them ill and penniless. At the Korean Navy headquarters he found an officer whom he knew who took him to the Third Army Hospital where he could be of help. He and his son were both put to work there immediately.

In the chaos caused by the war and the mass migration to the south, the true loyalties of the refugees could not be readily determined. On his third Sunday in Pusan CHANG was picked up by American intelligence authorities while walking back from church services, and was detained for a week. An American minister vouched for him as an elder of the Presbyterian Church and not a communist infiltrator. He was released on the last day of 1950 and returned immediately to work at the army hospital.

The plight of the refugees was pathetic and CHANG devoted his full energies to assist them. A Korean Christian minister Chun Youngchang, who had received a donation of US$5,000 for refugee relief, asked for his help in purchasing medicine. CHANG suggested that a greater need was to establish an infirmary to provide care for destitute patients, and that medicine could be obtained from the UN Civil Assistance Command.

In June 1951 CHANG resigned from the Third Army Hospital to open such an infirmary in a church warehouse on Yongdo (do meaning island) in southeastern Pusan. Christened the Gospel (Bogeum) Clinic, the infirmary was later housed in three staff tents. Free treatment was given to all who could crowd in. For the first two months CHANG was the sole doctor; he was then joined by Dr. Chun Chong-hwee, two nurses and a few helpers. The two doctors sometimes saw as many as 200 patients a day; in addition they traveled once a month to doctorless villages nearby. An American Christian Reformed church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, provided US$500 a month to support the tiny staff and their families—a small amount considering that Dr. Chun's family consisted of 10 individuals. CHANG and Chun made their first operating table themselves; later Dr. Baek lent them his own table on which over 10,000 operations were performed before CHANG returned it. After Baek was abducted by the North Koreans the infirmary dedicated a memorial building to him in which the operating table is now housed.

Although he lived under the most arduous conditions, CHANG was absorbed in the demanding and urgent work of attending to the pressing needs of his countrymen and felt completely fulfilled. He received only meager compensation, his work hours were long, his wardrobe consisted of clothing donated by the relief services, yet he has described those days as the "prime of his life," both as a doctor and as a Christian.

The clinic and its staff grew slowly and were sustained primarily by donations from various church and UN organizations. Some of the refugees who came for treatment themselves stayed on to work. An example was the hospital pharmacist whose mother also helped by washing clothes.

In 1953 CHANG was asked to accept a professorship at Seoul Medical College. He accepted, but feeling that he could not abandon the Gospel Clinic, compromised by commuting on the night train between Pusan and Seoul until the needs of the clinic caused him to give up his teaching to resume the clinic directorship.

The clinic was finding it harder and harder to carry the expenses of providing free medical treatment with the irregular aid it was receiving. An "appreciation box" had to be set up to receive money from patients who were able to pay so that those who were unable could continue to be served, and by 1955 it became necessary to start charging each patient 100 won, a sum less than the cost of a package of cigarettes.

It was also apparent that a permanent structure was needed. Dr. Dwight A. Malsberry, a Protestant minister, asked the Catholic Relief Services, which served as a funnel for public and private U.S. funds, for financial help in building a hospital. The organization promised to furnish building materials if the clinic would provide wages for the construction workers. Various Korean Protestant churches, especially the Koryo Presbyterian Church, took up the cause and a fund of 3,000,000 won was raised to purchase a site at Songdo on the southern side of Pusan, and to begin construction of a permanent hospital. Malsberry raised $60,000 in the U.S. to complete the hospital and to build a mission school. CHANG became the hospital's superintendent and director of surgery, positions he held for the next two decades.

With the construction of the modern 20-bed hospital and the expansion of its staff and services, the Gospel Hospital had to revise its policy of providing medical treatment to all at a nominal cost. It began to charge regular hospital fees to those who could afford them, while continuing to offer free treatment to the poor.

CHANG also organized a surgical department at Pusan University and taught there for five years, beginning in 1956. He continued the liver cancer studies which had captured his interest when he had been at Kim Il-sung University in the north. The work was hampered by lack of research funds until a senior factory official, recovering at the Gospel Hospital from the effects of a serious traffic accident, persuaded his factory to give 1,000,000 won for CHANG's studies; he was impressed by the doctor's principled refusal to accept the proffered gift of an expensive suit of clothes in gratitude for his care. The factory donation enabled CHANG to undertake a project that resulted in an innovative procedure in surgery for liver cancer—he and his colleagues investigated the segmental anatomy of the livers from 141 children's cadavers and performed an hepatic lobectomy. CHANG presented the results of this research at a Korean Medical Research Seminar in 1960 and received the President's Medical Science Prize of the Korean Medical Association in 1961. An article by CHANG entitled "Surgical Anatomy of Liver Pertaining to Hepatic Resection: a Summary of Clinical Experiences," describing his work, appeared in the Seoul Journal of Medicine in 1963.

While teaching at Pusan University CHANG's active faith caused him (in 1956) to form a group called the "Pusan Gathering" which met every Sunday afternoon to study the Bible and other Christian writings. In 1959 he organized the Pusan Christian Doctors Association which provided free medical care to the unemployed at an impromptu clinic set up in the corner of a small back room in the medical school. Cases requiring hospitalization were referred to the Gospel Hospital for free treatment. When two patients died in the hospital due to the advanced deterioration of their conditions, the mayor of Pusan established a city clinic in which the doctors could volunteer their services. For this and other work CHANG was given several medals, including one from the mayor in 1960.

In 1961 CHANG resumed commuting from Pusan to Seoul after joining the staff of the National University Medical School (united in 1948 with Seoul Medical College) as professor in the department of surgery. He wanted to work with Dr. Min Byong Chul, a doctor recently trained in the United States, to learn the latest surgical techniques.

In 1962 he himself had an opportunity to go abroad to attend a New York surgical seminar and to observe surgical practices in Europe. Colleagues and long time associates raised money to buy him a round-the-world airline ticket, and the Gospel Hospital gave him US$2,000 for expenses. CHANG had never before traveled abroad except to Japan and he relates many amusing experiences resulting from his first encounter with Western society. At the time he left Korea the 16 year old daughter of an American associate impulsively kissed him goodbye. Believing that kissing was a common custom in the West, CHANG took to kissing every woman to whom he was introduced, including a bemused Korean woman doctor he met in Columbus, Ohio. He finally realized kissing was not a universal Western custom when he attempted to kiss a kindly housemaid in Rome and was rebuffed for his advances. A quick learner, he gave her fifty cents instead.

CHANG was so conscious of saving money on the trip that he lost weight by eating meagerly, and wore out his shoes by walking to avoid taxi fares. He returned to Seoul thin and trim from the exercise and his Spartan diet. His daily expenses had averaged about US$10 while in Europe, and less in the United States where he was able to stay with friends. When he returned he was able to reimburse the Gospel Hospital for the money he had been given, and to report that, from his observations of surgical techniques in American and European hospitals, Korean doctors "were not behind" their Western counterparts.

During the next few years the inexorable rise in health care costs caused CHANG to become increasingly concerned about the need to provide some kind of prepaid medical insurance to help the poor pay for medical and hospital services. He recalled the compulsory medical insurance plan which had been instituted in 1945 in North Korea and tried unsuccessfully to interest his colleagues in the south in some form of voluntary medical cooperative. Although laws governing a national medical insurance plan were passed in 1963 the only program in effect was a pilot project, begun in 1964, which covered 590 workers in a fertilizer plant and a mine—a project of which Chang was unaware.

In April 1968 at a Sunday afternoon meeting of his "Pusan Gathering" CHA NG heard Mr. Chai Kyu-chul speak about his experiences in Denmark where he had become ill while on a study grant. Chai spoke of the relief he had felt when he discovered that his hospitalization expenses were covered by the Danish government's medical program. CHANG, Chai and two other members of the group decided to approach the churches of Pusan to try to interest them in forming a medical cooperative which would cover treatment and hospital expenses for members of their congregations. Letters were sent to 100 church bodies asking them to send deacons to help organize a program which would aid even their poorest parishioners meet medical costs.

Twenty-three Pusan churches sent representatives to a meeting held in the Pusan Christian Social Center on April 23, 1968, and a cooperative was formed. Simple articles of association were prepared describing a democratically organized, voluntary cooperative. A modest membership fee of 100 won and monthly dues of 60 won (about US$.22) were set, for which participants would receive free outpatient services and a reduction of hospital charges. Treatments for internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics and gynecology would be provided at the Gospel Hospital, which agreed to furnish its services at 60 percent of the rates regularly charged. Dental care and other specialized services would be obtained from local physicians. A health examination would be provided members at least once a year for early detection and treatment of disease. CHANG urged that church deacons be responsible for the collection of assessments from participants who were able to pay and that individual church welfare funds be used to pay fees for those too poor to afford even these minimal charges. The organization's slogan was: "Help poor patients while we are healthy; receive benefits when we are ill."

The cooperative started with 270 members, but by June its rolls had increased to 700, with 42,000 won a month being paid in dues. The cooperative's first setback occurred that month when two participants—both of whom were members of the Gospel Hospital staff—had to be hospitalized, and used up the entire amount of money collected that month. The board of directors then decided that employees of the hospital should pay at least part of their medical care until the cooperative was financially more stable.

In April 1969 the cooperative's membership was augmented by the inclusion of 11,000 members from a recently formed cooperative sponsored by the Swedish Save the Children Federation. The cooperative had been formed by Kim Young Whan and Bae Sang Tae when they realized that the Federation's purpose of providing a small amount of capital to needy Koreans to start business ventures would be negated and that the recipients would lose everything if they had a sudden illness which required expensive medical treatment. The amalgamation of the two cooperatives into the Pusan Blue Cross Medical Cooperative, Inc., raised the number of participants to nearly 14,000. New articles of association were drawn up and the corporation was approved by the Korean government in July.

A review of the Blue Cross Cooperative's activities in December 1969 showed that 18,679 outpatient treatments had been given to 14,903 members, representing 3,192 families, at the cost to the cooperative of 7,645,591 won; 238 patients had been hospitalized at a cost of 1,894,452 won. Over half the treatments had been for respiratory diseases (33 percent) and parasitic and digestive diseases (23 percent.) The cooperative had been greatly assisted by the gift of 500,000 multivitamins and 10,000 anti-anemia pills from the Christian Reformed Church Mission and a 330,000 won subsidy for the months of October through December from the Korean Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. As a result the cooperative showed an encouraging balance of 560,091 won at the beginning of 1970.

Inflation and the acceleration of the costs of medical services necessitated annual increases in the monthly fees charged to the cooperative's members. For several years when deficits occurred the Gospel Hospital made handsome donations to the organization, and in 1973 the hospital increased the percentage of the costs of medical treatment it absorbed from 40 to 50 percent. The initial membership fee also increased from 60 won in 1968 to 200 won by 1974; however, benefits were extended to include a 5,000 won payment for funeral expenses in case of a participant's death (1973) and 3,000 won to help cover the expenses of childbirth (1974). In 1974, in compliance with Korean law, the name of the cooperative was changed to the Pusan Blue Cross Medical Insurance Cooperative and the board of trustees was replaced by a steering committee. The Steering Committee is composed of 15 members, 10 of whom are selected by the general assembly (composed of representatives selected by members) and 5 are public members appointed by the mayor of Pusan upon the recommendation of the cooperative. The Steering Committee is responsible for budgeting, planning and reporting, managing cooperative properties, appointment and dismissal of employees, collection of insurance fees and disbursement of insurance benefits. The Office of the Secretariat is responsible to the Steering Committee for day-to-day operations.

As the cooperative has grown its character has changed. Some members of the original church groups dropped out, and other individuals joined who thought of the plan as personal health insurance rather than as a group effort to provide medical services for the needy as well as for the more affluent. CHANG has expressed regret for the weakening of the philanthropic ideals of the organization and the diminishing participation of some of the Christian churches which gradually lost enthusiasm for spending church welfare funds to subsidize membership dues.

It also became apparent that the Gospel Hospital was in an inconvenient location for many members. It was decided therefore to try to locate the Blue Cross offices and a clinic in the downtown area. A Supporters' Association was formed to raise the 30,000,000 won necessary and in 1975 a Blue Cross office and clinic were opened in the Soo Jong Dong section of midtown Pusan. A Blue Cross Welfare Organization was started in 1976 to provide health education, family planning services, inoculations and help with school tuitions for slum residents.

During this period the Korean government had begun to address the problem of providing health and medical care to more of its citizens. A U.S. Agency for International Development feasibility study in 1974 recommended that a special health planning unit be organized; with the help of a US$5,000,000 loan the Korean Health Development Institute (KHDI) was opened in 1976. The KHDI undertook to survey all existing programs related to public health and to start demonstration projects in selected areas to develop model low cost health care delivery systems. Community Health Projects (Maul Geon-gang Saup) were designed for three Koreanguns (counties) to restructure their medical and health delivery services at the primary (village), secondary (county) and tertiary (provincial) levels. Health agents were trained to work in the villages as educators and providers of primary health care. When necessary, referrals were made by them to county health centers or provincial hospitals. A prepaid medical insurance program was included in the program.

The Korean government's Fourth Five-Year Plan (1977-1981) emphasizes social programs. The government has begun enforcing medical insurance laws which have been on the books since 1963, and extending medical plans to government workers, employees in factories hiring over 500 workers, and all citizens over 65 and under 18 years of age. At the beginning of the implementation of the plan the use-rate of the medical care system by low income people was 46.9 percent in the cities and 45.8 percent in rural communities, indicating that less than half the poor who needed treatment were actually receiving it. The Blue Cross Cooperative lost some of its membership to the government programs in 1977 but gained additional members by 1978 to swell its rolls to 19,000, a clear indication that insurance plans like that of the Blue Cross are still necessary.

Turning his work over to one of his ablest former students, Dr. Park Young Hoon, Dr. CHANG retired from the by then 180-bed Gospel Hospital in 1976 to become Superintendent Emeritus. He continued as a Representative Director on the Steering Committee of the Cooperative. In the same year he received the Dong-baek (Camellia Prize) from the Republic of Korea in recognition of his service in the promotion of public health. Another feature of his service was the establishment by CHANG and other professionals of the Epileptic Association in Pusan in 1969.

CHANG celebrated his retirement from active participation in the Gospel Hospital by becoming a volunteer consultant on surgery in a community health project on Kojedo, an island two and a half hours by boat from Pusan. Started in 1970 under the sponsorship of the Christian Medical Commission of the World Council of Churches, the Kojedo project was designed to bring low-cost comprehensive health care to 30,000 persons in the northern area of the island, and to serve as a demonstration project for rural health education and medical care for a national rural health system. Nurses from the Gospel Hospital's College of Nursing (founded by CHANG in 1968 with the help of Netherlands' Christians) and students from the Maryknoll Nursing School assisted in the project to gain practical experience. The cost of medical care on the mainland had resulted in more people seeking surgery on the island than the project was designed to offer, so CHANG's surgical skills were an important contribution to the treatment of the most serious cases. CHANG worked with the project until 1979 when he retired to become consultant to the newly formed Inje Medical College, Paik Hospital, in Pusan. CHANG's services to the poor and needy were recognized by the Korean National Red Cross which gave him the Red Cross Order in 1978.

Although a respected surgeon who could command large fees for his services, CHANG has not enriched himself from his profession; indeed, he gave so much money to charity and to support needy medical students that colleagues had to advise him over the years to retain a small amount of money so that he could build a house for himself.

CHANG's strong Christian faith has sustained him in adversity and good times alike, and to share his beliefs he wrote A Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John, which was published in 1973. The same year A Textbook of Surgery which he co-authored was printed.

Although he has no evidence other than his own strong convictions that his wife is still alive, CHANG has kept his marriage vows. He does not know either what has happened to the five children he left in Pyongyang in the frantic evacuation of 1950. But as his son Ka-yong who accompanied him to Pusan has become an Assistant Professor of Anatomy at Seoul National University, CHANG believes that God, who has taken care of this son, is also looking after the welfare of his family in North Korea. He has recurrent dreams of meeting his wife, as well as vivid dreams that indicate to him that his parents are now dead and honorably buried.

Having uncompromisingly fulfilled the promises that he made to God and to himself when he entered medical school; to do his best and to serve the needy, CHANG KEE-RYO's prayer now is for peace—for himself, for his family and for his land.

September 1979
Manila

REFERENCES:

Chang Kee-ryo. "Blue Cross Medical Cooperative Movement," Journal of Korean Hospital Association. Vol. 1, no. 3, March 1973.

______. "Challenge of Medical Care for the Poor." Presentation made to Group Discussion. Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation, Manila September 1, 1979. (Typewritten transcript.)

______. "Pusan Blue Cross Medical Care Health Demonstration Project," Health Demonstration Projects in Korea. Seoul: Korea Health Development Institute. 1977.

______. What is Blue Cross Health Cooperative Union?" N.d.

Dong-a Ilbo (Korean-language newspaper). Interview with Dr. Chang Kee-ryo in a series, June 8-July 22, 1976. Translation by Pong-soon Lee.

Foreign Area Studies Division, The American University. U.S. Army Handbook for Korea. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. November 1964.

Korea Health Development Institute Seoul: Korea Health Development Institute. 1976.

Korea Herald. January 18 and 21, March 25, April 18 and 23, May 7, June 27, August 8 and 15, November 25, 1976; November 20, 1977.

Korea Times. April 23, June 20 and 27, August 4, September 14, October 5, 1976.

Maul Geon-gang Saup (Community Health Project). Seoul: Korea Health Development Institute. 1977.

Thurber, David, ed. Kojedo Project and Community Medicine. Kojedo Community Health and Development Project. N.d.