Pediatrician who boxes to cope with hospital exhaustion becomes world champion at 35

South Korean pediatrician Seo Ye-kyeng has won a world boxing title on her third attempt, knocking out Thailand's Wisuta Sririttidet in Seoul.

Seo, who represents Cheonan Beat Son Jung-oh Boxing Gym, took the Women's International Boxing Association (WIBA) minimumweight belt at the Swiss Grand Hotel in western Seoul on Oct. 17, Korea JoongAng Daily reported.

She knocked Sririttidet down in the second round and again 43 seconds into the third, prompting the referee to stop the fight, Korean sports outlet MK Sports reported. The win took Seo's professional record to 11 wins, one loss and three draws.

Sririttidet, 25, came into the bout as the World Boxing Council's (WBC) Asian atomweight champion, one weight class below Seo's.

Seo's first world title shot, against Japan's Riyuna Yoshikawa at the same hotel in March 2024, ended in a draw. Her second, for the vacant World Boxing Association (WBA) minimumweight title in Tokyo in January 2025, ended in a unanimous-decision loss to Japan's Yuko Kuroki, the only defeat of her career.

Seo, 35, is a professor of pediatrics at Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital Cheonan, south of Seoul, and cut her working hours there to train five or six days a week, The AsiaN reported.

She had little interest in sports at school or in medical school, but took up boxing in 2018, after becoming a doctor, to relieve the stress of work and study. She turned professional the following year.

"I was physically and mentally exhausted from working as a doctor," she said in an interview carried by Korea JoongAng Daily. "I started boxing as a way to endure the situation and keep going."

Before the world title, she won the Korea Boxing Commission's national light flyweight title and, earlier this year, the WBA's Asian women's minimumweight title.

"To take good care of my patients, I need to be physically and mentally strong myself," Seo said. "The sweat I shed in the ring also gives me tremendous strength when I meet patients in the examination room."

In an Instagram post, she wrote: "It was tough dealing with minor injuries and a long preparation period, but I'm happy to have become a world champion." She thanked members of her gym and friends who had traveled a long way to cheer her on.

Her next goal is a world title from one of boxing's four major sanctioning bodies: the WBA, the WBC, the International Boxing Federation and the World Boxing Organization, she said.