Asan Medical Center, encompassing a 2,207 tertiary care bed hospital, is the largest health care center in Seoul, Korea. The center has worked to build upon its reputation as the nation's most sophisticated academic health center as well as the hub of a broad-based, private, not-for-profit health care system. To accomplish this wide-ranging set of goals, Asan sought to:

  • Enhance its status as top-flight medical center
  • Improve hospital infrastructure, and expand the scope of health care services at Asan
  • Advance the quality of care at Asan


Asan Medical Center established a longstanding institutional alliance with HMI to work collaboratively to develop clinical, research, and educational programs through the following means:
  • Inauguration and oversight of professional development programs for faculty, nursing, technical, and administrative staffs at Asan.
  • The joint sponsorship of biennial international symposia in Seoul, Korea:
    Symposium I: Cerebral Ischemia: Basic Mechanisms and Clinical Aspects (1997)
    Symposium II: Scientific Integration of Western Medicine and Complementary/Alternative Medicine-Mind/Body Medicine (1999)
    Symposium III: Genomics and Proteomics: Impact on Medicine and Health (2001)
    Symposium IV: Nanotechnology in Biology and Medicine (2004)
    Symposium V: New Frontiers in Oncology (2006)

  • Selected Asan faculty and nurses have trained as post-doctoral research fellows and nurse-observers in diverse settings of the Harvard Medical School institutions and enabled ongoing collaborative research.
  • The biennial symposia have generated international recognition, and the proceedings of Symposium II and Symposium III were published in peer-reviewed (American) journals.
  • A resident exchange program has been initiated between Asan and Children's Hospital in Boston, which has enriched learning opportunities for the house officers of the participating institutions.