Book excerpt: All of Europe was ablaze when Clair M. Callan was born in 1940 as World War II raged across the continent. Although her home in Sandycove in neutral Ireland was peaceful and safe, the war had a great effect on her and her family. In Standing My Ground, Callan provides insight into the shaping of her life. This memoir spans the arc of Callans lifeseven decadesas a school girl in Ireland, a wife, mother, doctor, and eventually a business executive in America. Callan recounts how she partially cracked the glass ceiling to upper management at a time when it seemed impenetrable to women in the workplace world. While employed in different medical environments she created innovative approaches to healthcare and improved patient safety and quality. Starting with her early years, a time of privation during World War II in Ireland, through an uncertain move to America during Vietnam, it ends in an era of plenty in Illinois in the twenty-first century. Standing My Ground offers practical lessons from her life, illustrating how one can advance in a competitive environment, no matter what ones sex.