Being the first in the family to achieve something momentous is a special honor. Many of you, for instance, are the first in your family to go to college, and that's a very big deal. Now, imagine what it would be like to be the first, not only in your family, but in your entire country to achieve not just one thing, nor two, but three. Philip Jaisohn achieved this trifecta by becoming the first Korean to earn an American M.D., the first Korean to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, and the first Korean to marry a Caucasian. Impressed? Then consider this: He also achieved a few firsts in his native land.

Born Seo Jae-pil in 1864 in Korea, Jaisohn studied Confucian classes and Chinese writing. When he was 18, he passed the required examination for a government career. After a year studying at the Youth Military Academy in Tokyo, he returned to his homeland and was appointed the commandant of the Korean Military Academy.

In 1885, Jaisohn was involved in a coup that attempted to overthrow the Korean regime and establish widespread equality. China intervened in favor of the existing powers, and the coup failed. Convicted of treason, Jaisohn fled the country and arrived in San Francisco as a political refugee.

Jaisohn graduated from the Hillman Academy in Pennsylvania two years later. He began working at the Army Surgeon General's Library in Washington, D.C., translating Japanese and Chinese medical books into English before entering the medical school at Columbian University (present-day George Washington University).

Then, in rapid succession, Jaisohn achieved a trio of firsts: In 1890, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen, the first Korean to do so. In 1892, he became the first Korean to earn a U.S. medical degree, and in 1894 he married President Buchanan's niece, becoming the first Korean to marry a Caucasian.

Although assimilated into American society in just about every way, Jaisohn worried about the political situation in his native land. He returned to Korea in 1896 and planted the seeds of democracy through a different type of revolution—not political, but social, educational, economic and medical.

He began by publishing a newspaper using the Korean alphabet—the first one to ever do so—allowing people of all ages and stations to read newspapers in their native language, rather than in Chinese, which had dominated Korean culture. He established the Independence Club as his vehicle for presenting lectures and discussions on modernizing Korea and democratizing its political system. In Seoul, he erected the Independence Gate, modeled after Paris' Arc de Triomphe, to symbolize for his fellow Koreans the value of national independence from foreign powers.

As Jaisohn's influence grew and his plans became realities, the Korean government wanted him out of not only his leadership position but also the country. It fabricated a telegram informing him that his mother-in-law was dying, forcing him and his wife back to the States. Once he was out of the country, the Korean government shut down the Independence Club and arrested 17 of its leaders.

Shortly after, things took a bad turn in Korea. With the rise of imperial Japan around the turn of the century, the United States signed an agreement recognizing Japan's military control over Korea in return for Japan's promise not to attack the Philippines. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, and Jaisohn's plans abruptly came to an end, but not his dreams.

In 1914, he established the Philip Jaisohn and Company in Philadelphia. He contributed much of his profits to the Korean independence movement. In 1919, Koreans rose up in a nonviolent independence protest that Japan crushed with extreme violence, resulting in 5,000 deaths, with an additional tens of thousands tortured and imprisoned.

Horrified by the brutal denouement of the peaceful protest, Jaison organized the First Korean Congress and the League of the Friends of Koreans, established the Korean Information Bureau and published the monthly Korean Review. All of these activities bankrupted him in 1924, and he turned back to medicine to make his living. At age 62, he attended the University of Pennsylvania to refresh his medical knowledge and training. He worked as a pathologist for a decade, publishing five research articles in medical journals, and then went into general practice for another 10 years.

At the end of World War II, during which he volunteered as a physical examination officer for the U.S. Army, the U.S. Military Government in South Korea appointed him as its chief adviser, an ideal position for him, as he was able to serve both his native and his adopted nations. He continued in this capacity until the Republic of Korea was founded in 1948.

Jaisohn died at age 87 only six months after the Korean War began in 1950. Given his profound influence, the past 60 years of Korean, and, indeed, U.S. history may have turned out very differently had he lived a little longer.

His, legacy, however, does live on, with the creation in 1975 of the Philip Jaisohn Memorial Foundation, which promotes and fulfills Jaisohn's ideals of humanity through medical, social, education, and cultural services.

On a monument dedicated to him in 1977 in Media, Pennsylvania, the etched words best summarize his life and his contributions to both Korea and the United States:

He loved his native land, Korea; shook it from its slumbers, roused the young and thundered at the old. In exile, he embraced his adopted county, served it with true devotion, healed the sick, and advanced science. But, he never forgot his native soil, spared no effort for her freedom. And, to the end of his life, he remained a dedicated champion of the cause of humanity everywhere.

It can't get any more American than that.