Hallym University Chuncheon Sacred Heart Hospital

Hallym University Medical Center (HMC) started 'A Training Course on Burn Center Management' for twelve Iraqi medical delegates on November 26, 2007. The course lasts until January 16, 2008.

The Iraqi medical delegation consisting of four doctors and eight nurses will be part of the training program in the field of burn surgery, plastic surgery, rehabilitation and dermatology for 8 weeks to learn skills required at a burn center to be built at Imam Ali hospital in Baghdad, Iraq.

Designated in July this year as a Project Management Consultant (PMC) by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), HMC has served as a consulting institution to support one of the agency's Official Development Assistance (ODA) Projects. It has consulted a project to establish a burn center at Imam Ali hospital in Baghdad, and a mobile clinic team in Najaf, Iraq, and to provide a training aid and education program for medical personnel from Iraq.

Earlier, HMC dispatched a four-member delegation on July 19 to Jordan headed by Dr. Seok Woo Kim of Hangang Sacred Heard Hospital. During a ten-day visit to the Middle East, they had working-level discussions on the project with Korean ambassadors to Jordan and Iraq, Amer Hassan Al-Khuzaie, Iraqi deputy minister of health, and ten other Iraqi officials. Iraqi officials asked the Korean delegation to establish a burn center, since they have suffered from wars and terror attacks for twenty seven years.

Dr. Seok Woo Kim, director of the PMC, said, “This project is designed not only to provide quality medical services to the Iraqi people suffering from war, but to contribute to enhancing the quality of their life.” It would mean that Hallym has made one more step forward in creating opportunities for international cooperation with foreign medical institutions in the days to come.

HMC is ready to provide full support to establish a burn center in Iraq successfully, and this project will be a basis for maintaining amicable friendship between Korea and Iraq.