Yonsei Institute
for Global Health

Severance International Fellowship (SIF) is open to foreign physicians, dentists, nurses, medical technicians, or hospital administrators who wish to experience clinical care, operative procedures, and participate in research activities at Severance Hospital(Sinchon) Seoul, Korea. This program builds on the hospital’s long legacy and mission to educate future clinical leaders in healthcare and ultimately reducing health inequalities in the global society.

1. All foreign trainees have to be eligible to enter Korea without violating Article 11(Prohibition, etc. of Entry) of the Immigration Act of the Republic of Korea.
   
   
2. All foreign trainees have to be enough fluent in English or Korean to participate in the training. Trainees have to be not only able to do daily conversation, but also have to understand and be able to listen, read, write, and speak about their professional specialty area in English or Korean. Severance Academy might request official proof of the trainee's language proficiency if necessary. Interpretations are NOT available.
   
   
3. All foreign trainees have to be registered as trainees in Severance Academy, mainly by applying online at this homepage. (Email applications are not recommended.)
   
   
4. All foreign trainees have to submit a immunization form that asks for proof of vaccination or antibody test results for specific diseases designated by Severance Hospital. Please download the form here.

The division of Transplantation Surgery, Department of Surgery provides comprehensive services across multiple organs, including, kidney, liver and pancreas which involve living donors and deceased donor transplantation. The division of transplantation has formed an organic solidarity with multi-disciplinary approach such as transplantation surgery, liver surgery, urology, nephrology, hepatology, endocrinology, radiology, pathology, and laboratory medicine. We have been running a 2-year transplantation surgery fellowship program for abdominal multi-organ transplantations (kidney, pancreas, liver) and vascular access procedure.

History of Organ Transplantation Center at Severance Hospital

1979 – First adult living donor kidney transplantation 

1979 – First pediatric living donor kidney transplantation

1990 – First exchange donor kidney transplantation

1993 – First adult deceased donor kidney transplantation

1996 – First adult deceased donor liver transplantation

1996 – First simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplantation

1999 – First pediatric living donor liver transplantation

1999 – First adult living donor liver transplantation

2002 – First cross-match negative conversion kidney transplantation in Korea.

2003 – Fist living dual donor liver transplantation

2009 – First simultaneous deceased donor liver-kidney transplantation

2010 – First ABO incompatible living donor kidney transplantation 

2010 – 3000th kidney transplantation cases as Asia first single institute

2012 – First ABO incompatible living donor liver transplantation

2015 – Korea’s first combined liver and lung transplantation from living liver donor and deceased lung donor

2019 – Korea’s first robotic kidney transplantation

2019 – First Hand-assisted laparoscopic donor nephrectomy

Liver Transplantation

Since the first liver transplantation in 1996, the Severance hospital liver transplantation (LT) program has been continuously growing in the world class program. In 2003, we succeeded dual donor LT for a patient who was suffering from liver failure but had no suitable single donor. One of the strengths of our LT program is a strong multi-disciplinary approach among the various departments related to the LT, which can make good results after high-risk recipients such as LT for far-advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, ABO incompatible LT and combined transplantations. Recent 3 year operation success rate of living donor LT is 94.4%, which is better than world reported results. Moreover, three year patient survival rate of the hepatocellular carcinoma patients is 91.9%. For these good results, we are making an effort to give the best care to the patients before and after transplantation

Kidney Transplantation

Since the first kidney transplantation in 1979, the Severance hospital kidney transplantation (KT) program has achieved 5,000 cases in 2022. We have well established desensitization programs for patients with immunologically high risk, such as KT from ABO incompatible donor or/and positive crossmatching donor. We have maintained organized post-transplant program based on immunologic laboratory which contributes to successful treatment outcome of antibody-mediated rejection. Also, we invented a new surgical technique (VAMS) to make a small incision for living kidney donors.The first robotic kidney transplantion was performed on Nov 11, 2019 in Korea. About more than 200 cases of kidney transplanation are being perforemed at our center annuallly. Recent 3 year graft survival rate was 96.9% in living donor KT and 93.7% in deceased donor KT, which is better than world reported results. For these good results, we are making an effort to give the best care to the patients before and after transplantation.