Severance Hospital

Background

During the Gapsin Coup of December 1884, a coup staged by reform-minded officials of the Enlightenment faction, Min Yeong-ik was seriously wounded. Horace Allen, a medical missionary of the Northern Presbyterian Church, treated him with Western surgical methods and thereby won the confidence of King Gojong and the royal court. In January 1885 Allen submitted a proposal for establishing a hospital to the Joseon government, accompanied by a letter of recommendation from the American chargé d'affaires. The government, which was seeking to introduce Western medicine, accepted the proposal.

Development

• Opening in 1885: The hospital opened under the name Gwanghyewon in the renovated residence of Hong Yeong-sik, one of the leaders of the coup, in Jae-dong, Seoul. April 10 is commonly commemorated as the opening date, although sources differ slightly. About two weeks later the name was changed to Jejungwon, meaning "house of universal relief for the people." The hospital was placed under the Office for the Management of Diplomatic and Commercial Affairs (Tongni Gyoseop Tongsang Samu Amun), the government agency responsible for foreign affairs. The government provided the building, the budget, and administrative staff, while the missionary physicians provided medical care. A medical school was also established within the hospital, but instruction ceased around 1890, and it produced no formal graduates.
• Relocation in 1886: In the latter half of the year the hospital moved to Gurigae (near the entrance to present-day Euljiro). After Allen, physicians including John Heron and Robert Hardie took charge of medical care.
• Transfer to the mission in 1894: In 1893 Oliver R. Avison, formerly a professor in the medical faculty of the University of Toronto, arrived in Korea. Because official corruption and government indifference made the hospital difficult to operate, the Joseon government transferred the management of Jejungwon to the Northern Presbyterian mission in September 1894. Until then, missionary activity had not been permitted within Jejungwon.
• Severance Hospital in 1904: At the Ecumenical Missionary Conference held in New York in 1900, Avison presented a plan for a union hospital, proposing that physicians from the various missions in Seoul work together in a single institution. Louis H. Severance, a businessman from Cleveland, Ohio, embraced the idea and donated $10,000 toward construction, along with additional funds to purchase the site. A cornerstone-laying ceremony was held in 1902, and in September 1904 the new hospital was dedicated at Bokseunggol outside Namdaemun (across from present-day Seoul Station). Samuel Moffett and Horace Underwood gave addresses at the dedication.
• 1905: The government of the Korean Empire reimbursed Avison for the repair costs he had incurred and reclaimed the Jejungwon facilities.
• Later history: In 1909 the institution received government accreditation as Severance Medical School, and in 1947 it became Severance Medical College. When the college merged with Yonhi University in 1957 to form Yonsei University, the hospital became the affiliated hospital of the university's medical college. During the Korean War it operated relief hospitals on Geoje Island and in Wonju and Cheongdo, and after the war it relocated to Sinchon.

Outcomes and Influence

Jejungwon was the first Western-style hospital to open in Korea. It is regarded as a leading example of how missionaries in the early period of Korean Protestant history gained the trust of Joseon society through medical missions. Because Severance Hospital was planned from the outset as a union hospital based on cooperation among several missions, it is also cited as an early example of interdenominational cooperation. The hospital continues to state its mission as "freeing humanity from disease with the love of God."

Assessment and Controversy

Yonsei University Health System and Seoul National University Hospital differ in their interpretations of which institution succeeded Jejungwon. The debate has been conducted publicly since the 1980s.

• Yonsei University Health System holds that after Jejungwon was transferred to the mission in 1894, it continued in 1904 as Severance Hospital, with only its name changed. It points out that the historical sources do not use the term "entrusted management" and that Avison is recorded as having received full authority over the hospital's operation.
• Seoul National University Hospital regards Jejungwon as a national hospital belonging to a government agency. It argues that the 1894 measure transferred only management, not ownership, and that the government reclaimed Jejungwon in 1905. It further maintains that the Joseon government's modernization policy, rather than Allen's proposal, was the driving force behind the hospital's establishment.