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 Michael
O'Donnell, Ph.D., M.B.A., M.P.H., took a year off from his responsibilities
as editor in chief and president of the American Journal of
Health Promotion to serve as a Fulbright Scholar and visiting
professor at Yonsei University School of Health Management and
Science and Catholic University School of Medicine. His basic
goal was to help create an infrastructure for health promotion
programs in Korea, programs that help people manage stress, eat
nutritious foods and quit smoking, for example. Working with a
committee of Yonsei University deans and professors, Dr. O'Donnell
helped to develop what is probably the first systematic employee
health promotion program in Korea. He also conceived a Smoke Free
Workplace Campaign, which the Korean Association for Smoking and
Health adopted as it primary project for the year and the Ministry
of Health co-sponsored.
Working with Dr. Jee Sun Ha at Yonsei University, he helped to
structure a series of studies on the relationship between lifestyle
health risks and medical care costs, which he hopes will show
the insurance industry the potential return of investing in health
promotion programs. Attracting donations of health education books
and videos from U.S. publishers, he helped create the beginnings
of a resource center at Yonsei. He also attracted financial contributions
from the foreign business community to support some of Yonsei's
ongoing research efforts.
Dr. O'Donnell recognizes the value of the contribution he made
in Korea but attributes most of his success to his host country
colleagues, saying "The people I worked with in Korea were among
the most talented people I have ever met, and they were the top
people in each of their respective fields. They had the talents
and influence necessary to implement the programs we developed.
My job was to plants seeds of ideas and let them blossom in the
fertile soil provided by these remarkable people."
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