by John Aeby—Director of Communications
With quiet, gentle intensity Dr. Cho listens to the heartbeat and breathing of a newborn infant on the examining table before her. Watching her unhurried attention on this one child, it’s hard to comprehend that this one doctor has listened with this same singular focus on more than 50,000 children.
Dr. Cho, Byung-kuk has served as the primary pediatrician for Holt Children’s Services of Korea throughout most of its 52-year history. She even did a portion of her internship assisting Holt founder Harry Holt as he gathered up the weakest and most vulnerable homeless children in postwar Korea.
Throughout her career Dr. Cho has performed the initial medical evaluations on children coming into the care of Holt-Korea as well as the routine, bi-weekly check-ups on children in foster care. This devotion to children’s health has helped many children on their way to permanent adoptive families.
Dr. Cho’s work was recognized recently by the Korean newspaper, The Chosun Ilbo. The publication posted an online story about Dr. Cho’s care for children in its October 30, 2008, edition.
Through the years Dr. Cho has given special attention to children with medical conditions and disabilities. At a time when these children were often relegated out of sight to the backrooms of institutions, Dr. Cho developed a program that moved many of these children into foster care. The foster mothers who volunteered for this special service knew that they were committing themselves to a higher level of caring for their children and for a longer period of time. With training these foster mothers gave an extraordinary level of care on top of the typical expectation that they would lovingly care for their charges. These foster mothers learned therapies and whatever other special practices their children required. As a result many of these children improved and developed to the point that they could be adopted into permanent families.
Dr. Cho is a past recipient of the Holt International Bertha Holt Award that honors a special level of caring that directly improves the lives of children.
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