After an accident on the mat, Olympic hopeful Robert Lee became a paraplegic at 18. The gymnast then turned his interest to medicine despite naysayers who thought it would be too physically challenging. Now Lee has found his niche as an instructor at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University, where he specializes in spinal cord injuries.

 

Every morning, a pack of doctors dressed in crisp, white coats came to his bedside and brusquely asked, “How are you?” Then, they began poking and prodding the 18-year-old Robert Lee while conversing with each other in medical jargon.

“They were cold as ice,” recalls Lee, now 42. “There was nothing in them that communicated a sense of warmth or caring for suffering people.”

Lee, who had qualified for the 1984 South Korean men’s Olympic gymnastic team, laied in bed, aching to know if he would ever compete again. And a larger question loomed.

“In every mind of spinal cord patients dealing with paralysis is, ‘Will I ever going to walk again?’” Lee said. “And they never addressed that. It was kind of taboo to mention the word ‘walking.’” 

For three months, in a New York hospital, he pondered and awaited his fate.

“That’s what really disturbed me. If they were convinced I would never walk again, it would be all right to just say that. It was never mentioned — it was beat around the bush. I felt like the doctors weren’t being truthful with me.”

Right before his discharge, he was told that he was a quadriplegic and would never walk again. His spinal cord was shattered, and so was his Olympic dream. But, eventually, another dream formed.

“That negative experience really moved me in a positive way,” he said. “I wanted to become a doctor so I could show that isn’t the way it should be done. I knew it was going to be near impossible for me, but I was going to do it.”

 

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Throughout his adolescence, Lee had always been meticulous — planning each and every step of his life in gymnastics.

His family had immigrated to the United States in 1973, settling in a one-bedroom apartment in the New York borough of Queens with great hopes for the American dream. His father, who had been a pharmacist in Korea, had difficulty getting licensed in the United States. Forced to adapt, Lee’s parents took various jobs, working in a coffee shop, grocery store and factory. As a young boy, Lee would wake up to the jangling of his parent’s keys as they left, and then see them again in the evening when they came home late, exhausted from work.

“I realized that this is life,” Lee said. “We need to survive. I felt like I needed to be the pillar of the household. As the first Korean son, I took on that responsibility.”

When he was 8, Lee became enthralled by Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci. He was convinced a gold medal in gymnastics would secure his family’s future.