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7 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT
Dr. Elsie Koh
North Caldwell resident and physician leads by example
B
WRITTEN BY SHAYLAH BROWN
SHE ATTENDED BOARDING
SCHOOL IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
Koh’s father, a native of Korea,
relocated to West Virginia because
there was a dire need for physicians
there after the Vietnam War. “The
education in West Virginia was not
that great, so my parents sent me
away to the Madeira School, an all-
girls boarding school in Greenway,
Virginia,” says Koh. There, she got
her share of experience in different
professions, including interning for
Mel Levine, a U.S. congressman from
California, and volunteering at The
Washington Hospital Center.
“[During my sophomore year] I
would volunteer and shadow doc-
tors,” she says. “I would be standing
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SPRING 2020 MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE
over the operating table watching
chest surgeries and C-sections. I was
only 15 at the time. I was introduced
to the gruesome things at a very
early stage. It helped me prepare
for medical school because things
weren’t such a shock.
“Being in boarding school allowed
me to realize how limited my world
view was and how sheltered I was,”
she says. “That was really the begin-
ning of learning how to speak up
for myself and stand up for myself.
I was shy and introverted. This was
the beginning of my empowerment,
because I knew I had to learn how to
speak up.”
Her experiences also led her
y second grade, Dr.
Elsie Koh, 50, was
already navigating a
pretend operating room
and filling out prescrip-
tion pads. The daughter
of a physician, her fascination with
medicine began early.
Today, the North Caldwell resi-
dent is an interventional radiologist,
which means she provides minimally
invasive image-guided diagnosis and
treatment of disease.
When she chose her field, women
made up only 1 percent of it (they
now comprise 9 percent). She
held leadership positions at Azura
Vascular Care in Woodland Park,
where she worked for 14 years.
Here are seven things you
should know about her.