“Women should not show their bodies to doctors!”
This one sentence perfectly captures the era in which Kim Jeom-dong lived.
It was a time when it was not uncommon for women to lose their lives while suffering from illnesses due to superstitions and incorrect folk remedies, without even being able to set foot in a hospital because they were women.
In a time when life and death were thought to depend solely on heaven, young Jeomdongi dared to believe that it also depended on humans.
He decided to look at women's bodies and fix them himself.


The constant question, “Jeomdonga, where are you going?”
Starting with the miller in the first chapter, Jeomdongi is always heading somewhere.
Geumsoon's house across the street, Ewha Hakdang, Bogu Inn, Jeongdong Church... ... and finally to the United States, to Baltimore Women's Medical College, and then back to Joseon, riding a donkey all over the country.
The novel structure stands out by weaving together the twists and turns of Jeomdongi's life as she becomes Korea's first female doctor and begins practicing medicine.
The question “Where are you going?” that appears every time you turn the page of a book does not simply ask where Jeomdongi is headed.
Ask about the direction of life.
There is a reason for every place Jeomdongi goes, and there is a new reason for going to the next destination.
Even the heaven we are heading towards at the end.


The power of restrained writing and illustrations that perfectly fill the margins
Author Gil Sang-hyo, who abandons the common narrative that begins with when, where, and how one was born and raised, boldly introduces fictional characters, the mill owner and Geum-sun's mother, in the first scene, drawing readers in right away.
Although it cannot be found in any records, how many times did Jeomdong grow up seeing old men who went to the hospital and got shots and got better, and how many times did Geumsun's mothers die after growing boils the size of her fingernail?
The text, compressed into one or two lines per page, empowered Jeomdongi to portray every moment beautifully and poignantly.
The experienced and mature eye of artist Lee Hyeong-jin, who recognized at a glance the manuscript that left space for the illustrations to lead the story, was not wrong.

From Kim Jeom-dong to Park Esther, and back to Kim Jeom-dong
I would like to call him Kim Jeom-dong again, who changed his real name from Kim Jeom-dong to Kim Esther, and then moved to the United States after marrying Park Yu-san and living as Park Esther.
Shouldn't we call Esther, not by the name of someone who lived in a distant land, but by the name she was born with, the name her blood relatives and warm neighbors called her, the one who embraced countless patients with her whole body? This will be the first step toward remembering and conveying her life, a life that has yet to be properly biographyed.