There is a doctor who has special skills in treating the diseases in the nervous and digestive systems at the massage treatment department of the Nampho City Koryo Medicine Hospital.
His name is Choe Song Hyok, and he is blind.
“It will be probably hard to believe that a man with visual impairment has mastered the world of medical sciences. But Choe did it,” said Jin Yong Chol, director of the hospital.
Choe Song Hyok suffered from high myopia since his childhood and it got worse a year before he graduated from the middle school to nearly loss of his eyesight.
It was a despairing attack to him as he cherished a dream of becoming an artist.
But his teacher and classmates of the school gave him hope for the future.
His name was still on the list of roll book though he lost his eyesight and he could go on with his study with the help of them.
As he learned braille points at a factory for persons with visual impairment after graduating from the middle school, he came to have a firm conviction about his future.
Later, he attended a school under the Ministry of Public Health. The teaching staff and students paid special attention to him as it was the first time for the visually-impaired man to enter the school .
He came to know that he could give simple massage treatment with the help of finger sense and auditory sense. So he studied hard to graduate the course with top honour.
With fervour for learning, he went on with his study at Nampho College of Medical Sciences.
At the college he acquired the traditional therapy of his own style that can diagnose the patients’ disease symptoms by consultation, tapping and sense of finger and give rational treatment. He also learned acupuncture, moxibustion and massage.
“The most irritating thing was that I only had to listen to the explanations of lecturers without looking during lessons. Classmates explained the words written on the blackboard and lecturers held my hand and put my finger on the positions of muscles, the disposition of the human skeleton and acupoints one by one,” said Song Hyok.
He recalled that during his college days many lecturers and classmates served as his eyes.
Choe Song Hyok presented an essay titled “Clinical study for the treatment of haemorrhoidal bleeding by massaging” to the fourth national symposium on massage medical science and won high appreciation.
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