BROOKE GREENBERG, is a 12 year old girl from Baltimore, Maryland in the United States, but still looks like a 6-month-old infant, much to the mystery of the medical profession. When Brooke was about a year old, her parents were worried why Brooke was not growing like other babies. Today, 11 years have passed, but Brooke still remains about the size of a 6 month-old baby. She suffers from serious medical conditions, one of which is Short Stature. As a result, Brooke is not growing. In Korea, Short Stature is not very common, however, there are many Koreans who also suffer from it. The Yonsei Annals has taken a look into their pain of living small in Korea.

What is Short Stature?

There are three main causes for Short Stature: lack of growth hormones, Turner ’s syndrome, and malnutrition. Among them, a lack of growth hormones due to genetic defects or brain tumor, is the most common cause. Along with these medically recognizable factors, there are also patients who are absent in any medical abnormalities but are still very short. 

The genetic defects of most forms of Short Stature cannot be easily treated. Therefore, many therapeutic methods aim at reducing physical pain, mitigating psychological stress, and helping the patients adapt well in society. Unlike the common understanding, limb-lengthening is rarely used due to bone dysplasias it can cause and very ineffective result compared to its high cost. To diagnose the disease early and examine the exact symptoms of the illness, patients are recommended to receive basic medical checkups. For example, the Severance Children’s Hospital is providing Epiphysial Cartilaginous Plate, hormone and height checkups, to determine if a child suffers from Short Stature. Most of the patients are treated by recieving injections of growth hormones when diagnosed with Short Stature. However, the possibility of complete recovery is very low, and the effectiveness of receiving growth hormone injections is not stable but differs from patient to patient.

Sorrows that are Hard to Confide

The psychological disadvantages can be more distressing. Especially in childhood and adolescence, people with Short Stature fail to adjust to society and participate in social activities. The social prejudice against extreme shortness causes problems such as low self-esteem and isolation from the society. For example, a job application that inquires about height implies that physical appearance is being evaluated to become employed. According to Kyunghyang newspaper, people are being discriminated against when being employed just because of their small height. Even normal people who are not Short Stature patients are discriminated. Then how fatal would it be to patients with Short Statures?  “I personally do not regard Short Stature as an impediment because their only difference between normal people and them is height. However, our society due to appearance supremacy is marginalizing Short Stature patients and giving them emotional scars,” says Chae. In addition, many of the patients are just small without any mental development problems. However, they are often considered to have mental problems just because of their appearance. 

Currently Provided Medical Treatments

  Physical pain may be ameliorated by therapy or surgical procedures. However, the current medical insurance system does not provide financial help to the patients whose cause for the disease is not scientifically identifiable in order to prevent the abuse of the budget. “In the United States if a person is regarded as a Short Stature patient, the insurance system provideds partial supports for treatment that the patient receives, even when there is no specific medical explanation. Korea should also adopt this system in order to provide medical treatment to the patients at a low cost,” says Chae. For those who cannot afford to pay medical costs, support from welfare foundations can be helpful and very effective. “Although LG Corp. cannot help all the Short Stature patients, we have hope that our support would accelerate the recovery. Based on our past results of funding since 1995, patients have grown 8cm on average,” says Lee Moon-jong (Executive director, LG Welfare Foundation).    The negative effects of Short Stature can be divided into physical and social aspects. Physical difficulties of Short Stature patients are mainly pain that results from joint damage and nerve compression. This is mainly due to the abnormal segregation of growth hormones. Moreover, some forms of Short Stature are associated with functional disorders in of other organs, such as the brain or liver. This is regarded as a complication. In the case of Brooke, in the first few years of her life, she was able to eat. However, she later developed stomach problems and had to be fed through a feeding pump. She also had respiratory problems and was frequently hospitalized.  

The tendency to evaluate people based on their appearance is marginalizing the Short Stature patients to be in the category of minorities. The most superior beauty of all people lies in the inner mind. Height is not a special characteristic that decides who people are. Their only problem is that their height is frozen in the time of youth despite the ongoing time of age. Let the society embrace them in our life so that their frozen time can melt.

Special Interview with Park Gi-won (Doctor of Oriental Medical Science)

Currently being a chief of Seojung Oriental Medical Clinic, Park has been treating Short Stature patients since 1994. He has given medical treatments to approximately 80,000 Short Stature patients and is currently focusing on social welfare systems to help the patients participate in the society with ease. 

 Q. Is there any help that the society could provide to them?

Although this illness has to be treated physically, healing the mental pain of these patients is also in desperate need, and I believe that the society is responsible for it. We should continuously try to include these people into our society. Currently I am also running a theatrical company which is staging The Ballerina Who Loves a B-boy. I am planning to use the show as a means of therapy for my patients. I have further plans to involve my patients in the play by giving opportunities to spend time with B-boys and dance with them. This would be effective to raise their self-confidence. Hopefully, my plans will show that funding is not the only way to heal their pain, and the society can help them in many other ways.