My research focuses on the lived experiences of Korean physicians who were trained in U.S. public health schools, including Johns Hopkins University, from the post–World War II period to the 1950s. Little scholarly attention has been paid to these physicians and what has been written about them holds these figures up as the “founding fathers” of the public health field in Korea. They are often credited with establishing the first Korean school of public health and serving as high-ranking officials in the government’s public health department. Previous research has tended to concentrate on the policy level rather than on individual experiences in the United States, leaving a black box around what these physicians encountered during their American education.
When I was a master’s student in Korea, I often heard a professor tell the story of ten Korean physicians who went to the United States in 1945 to be trained at three public health schools: Hopkins, Harvard University, and University of Michigan. Later, when I came to Hopkins as a PhD student, I wondered if I might find historical records about them in the Chesney Archives. Fortunately, I did, and the materials were compelling, revealing different aspects from what I had heard. I decided it was worth pursuing further research on this topic.
The records I found at Hopkins, Harvard, and the University of Michigan reveal lesser-known aspects of Korean physicians in the U.S.. For example, I was able to uncover details of their personal hardships, which are absent from both public narratives and existing historiography. Their personal hardships while studying in the U.S., such as cultural and language barriers, are often overlooked. We have not heard the story of their public health fieldwork trip to Huntsville, Alabama in 1945. During the fieldtrip, students accidentally sat in the “wrong” seats on a segregated bus and were warned by white passengers.
I would like to explore the relationship between politics and medicine, particularly the process by which certain medical policies and practices are adopted. Specifically, I examine how Koreans selectively adopted American medical and public health traditions and policies through negotiations between Korean medical personnel and U.S. interests during the Cold War. The choices made in the early Cold War period imprinted and shaped the long-term trajectory of public health policy in Korea.
