Here is the full reference card for this book...
If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.
An American Odyssey
by Se-Kyung Oh
166 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1740; ISBN 1-4120-3932-0; US$20.00, C$24.00, EUR15.60, £10.81
This is a story of a young Korean war refugee, who came to America and became a highly respected medical school professor, despite all odds against an oriental woman in medicine
Read more!
About the Book About the Author Excerpt Catalogue Information
About the Book
This is the story of a Korean-American woman scientist, who was born in Korea and went through two wars (World War II and the Korean War) and two revolutions (the Student Revolution in 1960 and the Military Revolution in 1961) and eventually became a medical school professor in America.
She managed to attend the top school in spite of financial hardship in a war-ravaged country and eventually won a scholarship for her graduate study in the United States. After completing a series of postdoctoral training fellowships in biochemistry and immunology in many of the country's most prestigious institutions, she became a medical school professor and taught and trained many medical and graduate students for nearly two decades. During these years, she has also developed programs and carried out highly acclaimed research in cancer biology. She went on to industry, after two decades of academic research career. In industry, she developed the cardiac Troponin-I test for the early diagnosis of a heart attack -- a diagnostic test that is in use worldwide. After marriage to one of her colleagues, Professor Gerald Shklar of Harvard Dental School, she returned to academia on a part-time basis and worked to develop various tropical plant materials into medical/cosmetic preparations. She then decided to write this memoir, called An American Odyssey.
This story tells of the struggles of a young foreign-born oriental woman who strives to survive in the medical sciences profession in the 70s through the end of the last century in America. Despite the insurmountable odds against her, it was still possible that a sinngle oriental woman could achieve a reasonable degree of success, which, no place on earth other than America, would offer.
About the Author
BSc in Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, Seoul National University, Soeul, Korea.
M.N.S. in Nutritional Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Ph.D in Biochemistry, UNiversity of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.
Asst. - Assoc. - Adjuncy Professor in Microbiology, Boston University, School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts.
Senior Staff Scientist, Ciba Corp., Walpole, Massachusetts
Senior Research Scientis, Mass. Inst. Tech.
Excerpt
from pages 138-139
During my short span at the company, I learned that the success of an industrial operation is not measured by what one can do scientifically or technically, rather it depends on more, on how you are perceived by your peers or superiors. It didn't seem to matter whether you achieved something no one else had, or even brought considerable revenues to the company; it was more of a political game, just like any other success in academics. It's even truer in industry...I know that progress in America was made largely by the first-generation immigrants and their toil became the fertilizer for the flowering of out cultural and scientific progress. The scripture says, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24).
Catalogue Information
