“Now I am not a ‘myeong’ but a ‘myeonghwan (名患)’”｜Shin Dong-ah

• Miraculous spine specialist who ‘goes in and out while lying down’

• Parkinson’s disease is a death sentence for neurosurgeons

• I thought it was ‘frozen shoulder’… Early treatment missed due to stubbornness

• Constipation and sleep disorder prodromal symptoms that are overlooked without notice can make the disease worse.

• Don’t be obsessed with a cure, improve your quality of life

• Diseases that Korea, a super-aging society, needs to be most aware of and prepare for

• ‘Happiness hormones’ are something you create yourself, never give up.

Professor Park Chun-geun and his wife Jeong Sook-hee. Professor Park advised patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease like him, saying, “No matter what you do, you must alleviate symptoms and live a long life.” [박해윤 기자]

In July 2010, Park Chun-geun (72), head professor of neurosurgery at the Catholic University of Korea, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. As a result of positron emission tomography (PET-CT), it was confirmed that the substantia nigra neurons in the midbrain, which secrete a neurotransmitter called dopamine, were significantly reduced in the left brain.
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Dopamine is called the ‘happiness hormone’ as it is involved in regulating emotions such as interest, pleasure, concentration, sense of accomplishment, motivation, and desire for life. It also functions to regulate human movement normally, such as by stimulating or suppressing motor nerves. A representative disease resulting from dopamine deficiency is Parkinson’s disease. Even when you hold a glass of water, your hands start to shake, your joints become bent, your posture becomes hunched, your steps become slower, and eventually you become unable to even move.
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“For me, Parkinson’s disease is a death sentence. “It’s no different from cancer.”
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It’s a degenerative brain disease that causes movement disorders for surgeons whose delicate manual skills are vital. He was not even 60 years old. To be exact, he had just passed his 58th birthday. After being diagnosed with the virus, Professor Park felt distraught for a moment and worried about what to do with the influx of patients from all over the country. Only after notifying the hospital of the disease and adjusting the surgery schedule did I call my wife. Silence over the phone. His wife, Jeong Sook-hee, was speechless at the great misfortune that had befallen her husband, who had only known hospitals and churches, including spine surgery, throughout his life. I was so shocked that I sat blankly and cried for a long time.
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In 1998, Professor Park became the first doctor in Korea to perform vertebroplasty on a patient with an osteoporotic vertebral body fracture. An average of 200 patients a month came to receive this procedure, which is known as a treatment that allows patients who were unable to sit properly due to pain to go from lying down to walking out in just a few hours.

Spinal doctor lost in the maze of incurable disease

About 10 years later, the vertebroplasty he introduced became a ‘national procedure’ that was performed without difficulty in any hospital or clinic that specialized in spine surgery. In the meantime, Professor Park has become a doctor who educates numerous doctors by introducing more advanced spinal surgery technologies, new surgical approaches and inserts, such as balloon vertebroplasty, translumbar artificial disc surgery, and new spinal endoscopic surgery. He rose to success by becoming head professor of neurosurgery at the Catholic University of Korea in 2006 and director of the spine center and director of neurosurgery at St. Mary’s Hospital of the Catholic University of Korea in 2008.
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He was also active in academic activities. In 2002, he founded the Minimally Invasive Spine Society under the Society of Spine Neurosurgery, and in 2004, he founded the Spine and Arthroplasty Society, the first in Korea where neurosurgeons and orthopedic spine doctors participate together. In January 2009, the Asia-Pacific International Symposium of the Spine and Arthroplasty Society was held with over 400 participants from over 20 countries, and in June of the same year, he became the first Asian to be appointed as the president of the International Spine Arthroscopy Society and held an academic conference in London, England. did it
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Parkinson’s disease struck him who was at the top as a doctor and professor. Professor Park described this time as “a tragedy where, as soon as you spread your wings and take flight, they are broken by a strong storm called Parkinson’s disease and you fall into the abyss.” Ironically, around that time, he appeared on EBS’ ‘Myeong’.
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In ‘Myeongmyeong’, which aired in September 2011, he was introduced as “a neurosurgeon, spine and disc specialist who maintains the balance between blind faith and distrust.” Patients with spinal diseases wander between the blind belief that the pain will go away with just surgery and the disbelief that no matter how much it hurts, a knife will not be applied to the back. When a patient who unconditionally wants surgery is sent away with the words, “Take physical therapy for a month,” 7 out of 10 patients get better without surgery. Conversely, surgery was strongly recommended for patients who were at risk of worsening as time passed. In that precarious tightrope walk, Professor Park was a master of balance so that patients would not lose their balance.
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However, he was actually trapped in the maze of Parkinson’s disease and could not find a way out. I thought that the stiff shoulders that usually come after surgery were an occupational disease of surgeons, but I never dreamed that it was Parkinson’s disease. No, it would be more accurate to say that I didn’t want to admit it until the end. He said, “It was my last evil as a doctor.”
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“If it were a disease that could be cured, I would have already accepted it. The moment you admit it, you become so miserable. “It was like putting a gun to my head and shooting.”

It took 13 years to admit ‘I am a patient’

Park Chun-geun, professor emeritus of neurosurgery at the Catholic University of Korea. written by oneself [신경외과 전문의 파킨슨병 실제 투병기]Professor Park Chun-geun shows this. [박해윤 기자]

It’s been 14 years since I officially became a Parkinson’s disease patient. This year, Professor Park published a book titled ‘Neurosurgeon’s Real Battle against Parkinson’s Disease’ (By Books). Even though it was difficult to sit for more than an hour due to extreme fatigue, he accepted that sharing his experience of fighting the disease with the world was a new mission given to the doctor who became a Parkinson’s disease patient. Several years ago, the advice and support of my eldest daughter, Soeon, who said, “I think my father has a role to play as a neurosurgeon and a Parkinson’s disease patient,” was a great help.
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“As a Christian, it would be even stranger if I didn’t ask God again and again, ‘Why did you give me this disease?’ I sometimes thought negatively that it would be better to give up than to struggle in despair every day and live like this. However, at some point, I accepted that ‘I am a patient’ and my life completely changed. “From the perspective of a neurosurgeon who is a Parkinson’s disease patient, I thought it would be helpful to patients and their families who are just starting to fight the disease by developing measures for new symptoms and writing a battle report that summarizes the treatment process and progress.”
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His head was tilted about 15 degrees to the left and his speech was slurred, but he agreed to be filmed twice. The total number of views of the released videos is well over 1 million. The numerous comments left on the video all said, “As a doctor who has worked for patients all my life, it must have been difficult to reveal my illness, so thank you for having the courage.” Professor Park himself confessed this in the preface of the book.
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“Parkinson’s disease struck me when I had reached the top in my career and professional field, but as a doctor, I was not allowed any privileges or exceptions. There was only one Parkinson’s disease patient. It took 13 long years to accept this fact. “What I need now is positive thinking and patience as a patient, rather than the pride of a doctor.”
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Professor Park, whom we met at his home in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, on the last day of September, took a bath with the help of a caregiver and then responded to the interview dressed in a neat suit as when he went to work at the hospital. He was in good enough condition to sit in his wheelchair and talk non-stop for over an hour. Her skin was clear and her expression was bright. He was proving with his whole body how important it is to think positively as a patient.

Park Chun-geun, professor emeritus of neurosurgery at the Catholic University of Korea, giving an interview while sitting in a wheelchair. [박해윤 기자]

‌“There is no treatment yet that eliminates the root cause of Parkinson’s disease. Various symptoms appear before and after the ‘honeymoon’ (the period when Parkinson’s disease patients can live like normal people with only initial medication), but if they are not treated in time, saying ‘it is an incurable disease, there is nothing we can do’, they end up enduring it with painkillers and tranquilizers. As a doctor, it is important to find a cure, but I think it is a true honor to help patients who have to live with this disease for a long time to feel more comfortable and motivated to live.”
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Senior Pastor Lee Seong-hee of Yeondong Church, who watched him mature through physical and mental pain for about 10 years after contracting a disease that modern medicine could not cure, gave him the title ‘Myeong-hwan (名患)’ rather than ‘Myeong-hwan’. As the saying goes, “A wounded person becomes an expert in healing,” it also meant that Professor Park, who had become a master, had become a true doctor.
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“A meunghwan is an active patient who does not cling to a cure, but accepts his condition positively, and maintains his quality of life by receiving professional treatment for even minor symptoms and resolving them at the right time. You can only receive good treatment if you become a person with great health. “I want to prove through myself that if you treat each new symptom as it appears during the fight against the disease, your quality of life will change.”

Twisting while walking, jumping up while sleeping, early treatment missed due to stubbornness

The number of Parkinson’s disease patients in Korea is over 130,000. This is a surprising increase compared to 80,000 10 years ago. The incidence rate is only about 0.3% of the total population, but when looking at older age groups, it rapidly increases to 2% of the population over 65 years of age and 4% of over 85 years of age. As we prepare to enter a super-aging society (more than 20% of the population over 65 years old) in 2025, Parkinson’s disease is one of the diseases we need to be most wary of and prepare for. However, we do not know the true nature of Parkinson’s disease. No one informs us that symptoms such as constipation and sleep disorders can occur as prodromal stages of Parkinson’s disease. Prodromal symptoms refer to clinical symptoms that appear unrelated to a disease before a disease is diagnosed clinically.
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When I became a patient, I was heartbroken that I had missed the opportunity for early diagnosis and treatment. Rather, whenever Parkinson’s disease prodromal symptoms appeared, they tried to find the cause elsewhere and neglected it, or wasted time and money on wrong treatment. The typical prodromal symptoms that appeared in him were constipation and sleep disturbance.
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“Constipation got worse about 5 years ago after diagnosis, and about a year ago, when I went to an overseas conference, I had a hard time with no stool for a week. In the hotel bathroom, I had to wear disposable gloves and dig out the stool that was as hard as a rock. The second prodromal symptom is REM sleep (rapid eye movement sleep) behavior disorder. “I screamed in my sleep, got up and bumped into someone, tore my forehead and tore my lip, but I thought it was just me complaining or talking in my sleep.”
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Parkinson’s disease is a disease caused by impaired motor control ability. This disease is suspected only when motor symptoms such as trembling of hands and feet even when standing still, stiff muscles, unstable posture, and slow movements appear. On the other hand, non-motor symptoms that are difficult to consider as diseases, such as constipation or sleep disorders, are easy to miss. Professor Park said, “The non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease include REM sleep behavior disorder, loss of sense of smell, constipation, urinary dysfunction, orthostatic hypotension, excessive napping, and depression. If two or more of these symptoms are observed after the age of 50, it is Parkinson’s disease. “You have to suspect illness,” he advises.
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In fact, Professor Park suffered from right shoulder pain three years before diagnosis. I started having pain in my shoulders and then my knees, and around that time, I fell often. There was a time when I turned around quickly when someone called from behind, lost my balance, fell, and tore my ear. Each time, I blamed it on the polio I suffered as a child. In fact, he suffered from polio when he was one year old, which left him paralyzed, but he recovered. Because he had overcome the disability of polio, he ignored most of the symptoms. However, fellow doctors noticed subtle changes in him, such as slower than usual hand movements and movements, slight hand tremors, and expressionlessness, and carefully raised the possibility of Parkinson’s disease, but he did not listen. Another waste of time wasted.
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The orthopedic surgeon treating his shoulder recommended neurology treatment. The radiology test results indicated Parkinson’s disease. As soon as I started treatment, the shoulder pain that had been bothering me for so long completely disappeared. Professor Park confessed, “As a doctor, my negative obsession with Parkinson’s disease delayed accurate diagnosis and resulted in me not receiving appropriate treatment at an early stage.” Afterwards, he advised, “If you suspect Parkinson’s disease, don’t waste your money and get a brain imaging test first.”
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Patients with Parkinson’s disease receive drug treatment to replenish dopamine. The representative oral treatment is levodopa (a combination of L-dopa and carbidopa). The basic treatment method is to start with a small amount (initial dose of 200 mg) and gradually increase to the maximum (1,500 mg) to maintain the honeymoon period where you can live like a normal person as long as possible. However, because the side effects of the drug are severe, there is a limit to increasing the dosage. As the level increases, side effects such as chorea, flail syndrome, dystonia, and myoclonus appear, which is called ‘levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID).’ Approximately 30% of patients experience LID within 3 years of drug administration.

“It’s going to get worse again anyway,” the doctor said.

‌Fortunately, after honorably retiring from the Catholic University of Korea in 2013, Professor Park worked as an honorary director of a spine specialty hospital until 2019, spending a long honeymoon period where he could concurrently practice medicine. I think the secret is consistent exercise.
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“For the past 10 years, I have consistently performed personal exercises twice a week, including exercises to build lower limb strength, maintain upper body muscle mass, and aerobic exercises, and received physical therapy, which has been quite effective in treating non-motor symptoms. I was surprised when I told a rehabilitation medicine doctor, ‘I got better after trying this,’ and he said, ‘It will get worse again anyway.’ I couldn’t believe that a doctor would react so negatively and passively to the symptoms of a Parkinson’s patient.
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The doctor must unconditionally choose a method that will improve the patient’s symptoms and provide treatment. Among them, there are many symptoms that do not improve but are completely cured. In particular, individual exercise and rehabilitation exercise are more necessary in the early and middle stages. In the terminal stage, most people are over 80 years old, and this is the age when movement becomes difficult even for people without the disease. 80% of Parkinson’s disease patients often suffer trauma from falling due to gait freezing (freezing while walking) or postural instability, so exercises to strengthen lower limb muscles are essential. What is clear is that Parkinson’s disease is an incurable disease because the cause is unknown, but it is not an incurable disease because the symptoms cannot be treated.”
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The honeymoon came to an end for him too. Although it was not a side effect of the drug, as Parkinson’s disease progressed, severe posture deformity occurred around 2019. When standing, the upper body was bent forward and the head was extended so that only the other person’s feet could be seen. As a spine specialist, my opinion is ‘severe torticollis accompanied by cervicothoracic retroflexion deformity with the head falling forward to the left.’
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“As a spine surgeon, if a patient with spinal deformity like me had come to me in my prime, I would have recommended surgical treatment (anterior and posterior cervical decompression and fusion fixation) without hesitation. Surgical treatment involves opening the front and back of the neck and straightening the deformed spine using screws and metal rods as supports. If you do that, your head will be upright but your neck will not turn. The recurrence rate is also high. The deformity is due to muscle abnormality, so could the success rate be increased by inserting screws and steel cores into the normal vertebrae for stabilization? Once you are retransformed, you have to live the rest of your life looking at the ground. It becomes more miserable.”
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He knew this prognosis better than anyone else, but his eyes were dark. Even if I had surgery, there was no doctor willing to perform this dangerous surgery. I couldn’t just wait, so I started rehabilitation treatment. All the therapist had to do was press the painful area with the tip of the elbow or massage the stiff area up and down, and carefully massage the neck area. However, after consistently doing it for about 4 months, the deformity began to ease, and after about 6 months, dramatic changes appeared such as the neck that had fallen, the curved spine straightening, and torticollis alleviating. Professor Park presented his rehabilitation treatment progress at the Spine and Arthroplasty Association last year.

The fallen neck returns and the curved spine straightens.

“No neurosurgery textbook states that rehabilitation treatment should be attempted first before surgery for spinal deformities observed in Parkinson’s disease, and if symptoms do not improve, surgical treatment should be performed. However, when the doctors saw that my condition was alleviated with physical therapy alone, their mouths widened. Doctors don’t believe anything until they try it themselves and get the same results. But how can you not believe me when you see me? Everyone probably thought to themselves, ‘I should try it too.’ In the future, it will become more clear if there are reports that patients like me have improved after receiving similar treatment. The reason why I presented my case at the academic society is because I wanted to convey that, if the treatment of patients with spinal deformity so far has focused on surgery, in the future there is a need to determine the cause of the disease, accurately determine whether it is a muscle abnormality or a bone abnormality, and then set a new direction for treatment. Because. Simply put, ‘perform surgery when you can’t do it.’ It’s ‘don’t touch anything from the beginning.’”
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Parkinson’s disease presents various symptoms at different times. Among them, urinary dysfunction is something that seriously interferes with daily life but is difficult to tell anyone about. Professor Park began experiencing intermittent urinary incontinence around 6 years after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and from the 10th year onwards, ‘urinary urgency’, which involves urinating while going to the bathroom, became more frequent. Frequent urination, waking up four or five times at night, also became worse. I was embarrassed to discuss these symptoms with my junior professors, so I tried to deal with them on my own, but when it became too much to handle, I ended up visiting a urologist. After controlling my symptoms with appropriate medication, I could only lament the foolishness of putting my pride ahead of my health. In addition, REM sleep behavior disorder at the beginning of diagnosis disappeared with the prescription of sleeping pills, and mental problems such as alienation, deprivation, decreased will to survive, insomnia, and fatigue that occurred around 2021 after completely withdrawing from work also quickly improved after starting drug treatment.
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Dysphagia, commonly referred to as ‘feeling dizzy’, may seem trivial, but it is a symptom that absolutely requires treatment for Parkinson’s disease patients. In fact, the most common causes of death in Parkinson’s disease patients are aspiration pneumonia due to dysphagia and femoral or spinal fractures due to falls. After testing for dysphagia, he improved significantly through rehabilitation treatment, including occipital electrical stimulation therapy and oral-occipital muscle strengthening exercises.
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“During a short outpatient consultation, the doctor asks whether the patient’s symptoms are getting better or worse, whether they are exercising, and prescribes the treatment. That’s it. Doctors have no way of knowing whether a patient has a sleeping disorder, a urinary disorder, or depression. Because it is a chronic disease, you have the opportunity to see your doctor once every 3 to 6 months, and at the longest, they say, ‘See you in a year.’ In the meantime, if the numerous symptoms that occur in the patient are not treated, there is no chance of recovery. Although it is a symptom that can be easily improved, treatment is often missed due to neglect. You should never think that the doctor will take care of it. “When you see your doctor, ask, ‘Why can’t I sleep?’”
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Professor Park emphasized the need to establish a collaborative treatment system among various departments for Parkinson’s disease patients, as well as the establishment of a Parkinson’s disease specialty hospital and nursing hospital. Organic cooperation between various departments is required for the treatment of patients, and since it is a chronic disease and various symptoms appear at any time, medical staff with expertise in each symptom must be present to provide appropriate and quick measures. In addition, he said that if there were a nursing hospital that specializes in rehabilitation treatment, the quality of life of Parkinson’s disease patients could be significantly improved.

A flower basket gifted by Professor Park Chun-geun to his wife on her birthday. [박해윤 기자]

Park Chun-geun, ‘full of goodness and overflowing’

“After suffering for 10 years, patients tend to forget their gratitude. However, I cannot receive any treatment without the support and help of my family. I don’t know how much my wife worked hard to take care of me. I weighed up to 80 kg, so if I fell, it wasn’t usually difficult to get up. In the early days of my diagnosis, I was nervous outside and was fine, but when I came home, I fell a couple of times. Every time, the only person who can help me up is my wife, so this is a disease that is making her suffer. Nevertheless, my poor personality took it for granted. Even if I don’t express it, I can’t express my family’s sadness and regret. Patients should be grateful to their families, and families should understand the patient’s suffering and not give up. “Just as your palms must meet to make a sound, you can only live a happy hospital bed with your family.”
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Throughout the interview, his wife, Jeong Sook-hee, watched Professor Park with tears in her eyes. This disease, which is caused by a decrease in dopamine, the ‘happiness hormone’, even stole the smiles of my family. However, the family of Elder Park Chun-geun, Deacon Sook-hee Jeong, and their two daughters, So-eon and So-ha, regained their smiles by filling the dried up dopamine with the power of love and faith.
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Professor Park is preparing for his second battle with the disease. It will contain more specific information on what problems there are in the treatment process for various symptoms and how to prepare for side effects of drug treatment, such as chorea. In particular, we decided to co-author with Professor Emeritus Lee Cheol of the Catholic University of Korea Medical School on the psychiatric problems experienced by Parkinson’s disease patients.
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Professor Park’s pen name is Manseon (滿善). Pastor Seonghee Lee wrote this for me when I celebrated my 60th birthday after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He who cried, “I would rather take you to the kingdom of God than to live in a body like this,” was told that he was a “person overflowing with goodness”… . What more does God want from him? Professor Park smiles, saying, “As a patient, not a doctor, he has given me a new role to understand the true nature of Parkinson’s disease and lead patients to a meaningful life fighting the disease physically and spiritually.” His last words to Parkinson’s disease patients were, “Don’t give up.”
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“No matter what we do, we need to alleviate symptoms and live for a long time. “If you don’t give up and live long enough, a cure may come out.”