Doctor who was Cape's first neurosurgeon dies at 81

Yong Kie Kim, the man who brought neurosurgery to Cape Girardeau, died Saturday. He was 81.

“Dr. Kim was one of the pioneers who helped bring Saint Francis and Cape Girardeau into the modern age of surgery,” Thomas Diemer, Saint Francis Healthcare System vice president of quality and patient safety, said in a statement Wednesday.

Kim began practicing with Saint Francis Medical Center in 1985, and for several years served as the area’s sole neurosurgeon.

His daughter, Anje Kim, said her father “literally lived and breathed neurosurgery.”

She said he found his calling after escaping his native North Korea as a teen, leaving behind his parents to live with his older siblings and study medicine in Seoul, South Korea.

When he graduated from Seoul National University School of Medicine, he continued his studies in Germany.

“Neurosurgery was to him absolutely the greatest field of medicine,” Anje Kim said.

She said his dream at first was to devote himself to academia rather than to the practice of neurosurgery.

Despite having moved to Germany without knowing the language, he eventually found himself writing and even lecturing in German.

“In the course of time, he migrated from the academic track to being a private practitioner, but that drive to be the best in his field was always there,” Anje Kim said.

Part of what drew him to Cape Girardeau was the opportunity to effectively start a neurosurgery unit and run it according to his standards, she said.

“He was comfortable and confident in all areas of neurosurgery,” she said. “He had a great staff that surrounded him. He had so many people who supported him. His time in Cape Girardeau was probably the happiest time of his life.”

In 1991, he recruited David Yingling, who now serves as chairman of the section of neurosurgery at Saint Francis Medical Center.

“He was a brilliant neurosurgeon,” Yingling said of Kim. “He worked alone for five or six years and essentially never had any time off because he was always taking care of patients.”

Before Kim’s arrival, patients had to go to St. Louis or Memphis, Tennessee, for neurosurgical services, Yingling said. Cape Girardeau now has several neurosurgeons.

“There’s a large population that benefits here from having that many neurosurgeons, and he’s the one that started it,” Yingling said.

Although Kim went to work early and returned home late at night, his daughter Anje said he also was present to raise her and her sister, Sola.

“I don’t know how he did it, but I never felt he was missing,” she said.

She recalled from a young age she knew her father did important work — even if she didn’t understand precisely what it was he did.

Once she saw what he did, she said his passion became her own.

She was home and without a summer job, having graduated as a pianist from the Juilliard School in New York City when he took her to work.

“He said, ‘Hey, if you’re not doing anything, you should come help me,’” she recalled. “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I was in the operating room for two weeks as a retractor holder and seeing my father work, seeing what he did with his hands, when I saw the brain pulsating, that was just the coolest.”

She decided to pursue medicine and now is a practicing neurosurgeon in Casper, Wyoming.

Yong Kie Kim retired after a decade in Cape Girardeau, moved to California while he still was in good health and discovered a non-medical hobby: golf.

Anje said he got pretty good at it, too, but that’s hardly surprising, given the man she knew her father to be.

“He always taught my sister and myself, ‘Whatever you do, you have to be the best in it,’” she said. “Whatever you choose to do, don’t go in halfway.”

tgraef@semissourian.com

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