Living Medicine: Memoir Book

Memoir of a Young Chinese Immigrant who became a Doctor at the Mayo Clinic

An inspiring adventure which quickly moves between China, Cuba, Ireland, and the U.S., with three main themes:

1. The American dream works.
2. Seek first rate medical attention, like at the Mayo Clinic.
3. Strive for a happy, productive, meaningful retirement.

At seventeen in 1941, Victoria L. Beckett fled war-torn China by boat to America, without parents or a support network just $50 and a trunk of clothes. Still, she went on to college at Mt. Holyoke, to medical school at University of Michigan, and to residency training at the prestigious Mayo Clinic. Along the way as a practicing doctor, she encountered gun shot victims at 2 a.m., a car bomb outside Trinity College, rich and poor patients in Detroit and Dublin, Ireland, and patients set to sue every doctor they saw. Through every experience, she never saw herself as Chinese or a woman, but simply as striving to be the best physician she could be. Now in retirement, she has kept mentally alert by earning a Masters degree in psychology, and physically fit by teaching Tai-chi. This book is her story, from her childhood in China, and her seventeen years at the Mayo Clinic (working with some of the best doctors in the world) to her active retirement. She and husband, Joseph Sharp, live in Rochester, a small Minnesota city. Doctors without Borders will receive book proceeds.

Written for the general reader in every-day English, this book will especially appeal to:

• Everyone interested in health and good medical care
• Young people considering a medical career
• Women and Immigrants
• Seniors and Retirees.