50 Facts About Norman Bethune

Henry Norman Bethune was a Canadian thoracic surgeon, early advocate of socialized medicine, and member of the Communist Party of Canada.

Norman Bethune helped bring modern medicine to rural China, treating both sick villagers and wounded soldiers.

Norman Bethune was responsible for developing a mobile blood-transfusion service for frontline operations in the Spanish Civil War.

Norman Bethune later died of blood poisoning after accidentally cutting his finger while operating on wounded Chinese soldiers.

Norman Bethune's name is honored in China to this day.

Norman Bethune eventually reached the Pacific at Fort Astoria, Oregon.

Norman Bethune became chief factor of the Lake Huron district for the Hudson's Bay Company after the merger of the rival companies.

Norman Bethune went on to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1860 and practised in Edinburgh until 1869.

Norman Bethune's mother was Elizabeth Ann Goodwin, an English immigrant to Canada.

Norman Bethune grew up with a "fear of being mediocre", instilled into him by his emotionally strict father and domineering mother.

Norman Bethune was born in Gravenhurst, Ontario, on March 4,1890.

Norman Bethune's siblings were his sister Janet and brother Malcolm.

Norman Bethune interrupted his studies for one year in 1911 to be a volunteer labourer-teacher with the Reading Camp Association at a remote lumber camp near Whitefish, Sudbury.

Norman Bethune returned to the University of Toronto in the fall of 1912, this time in the faculty of medicine.

Norman Bethune joined the Canadian Army's No 2 Field Ambulance to serve as a stretcher-bearer in France.

Norman Bethune was wounded by shrapnel at the Second Battle of Ypres and sent to an English hospital to recover, repatriating to Canada in October 1915.

In 1917, with the war still in progress, Norman Bethune joined the Royal Navy as a Surgeon-Lieutenant at the Chatham Hospital in England.

Norman Bethune sought treatment at the Trudeau Sanatorium in Saranac Lake, New York.

The physicians at the Trudeau thought this procedure was too new and risky, but Norman Bethune insisted on having the operation performed and made a full and complete recovery.

In 1929 Norman Bethune remarried Frances; the best man at the wedding was his friend and colleague Graham Ross.

In 1928 Norman Bethune joined thoracic surgical pioneer Edward William Archibald, surgeon-in-chief of the McGill University's Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal.

From 1928 to 1936 Norman Bethune perfected his skills in thoracic surgery and developed or modified more than a dozen new surgical tools.

Norman Bethune published 14 articles describing his innovations in thoracic technique.

Norman Bethune started his career in surgery at the Toronto General Hospital in 1921.

Norman Bethune became increasingly concerned with the socio-economic aspects of disease.

Norman Bethune challenged his professional colleagues and agitated, without success, for the government to make radical reforms of medical care and health services in Canada.

Norman Bethune was an early proponent of socialized medicine and formed the Montreal Group for the Security of People's Health.

In 1935 Norman Bethune travelled to the Soviet Union to observe firsthand their system of universal free health care.

Shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, with the financial backing of the committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, Norman Bethune went to Spain to offer his services to the government forces.

Norman Bethune returned to Canada on June 6,1937, where he went on a speaking tour to raise money and volunteers for the Spanish Civil War.

Shortly before leaving for Spain, Norman Bethune wrote the following poem, published in the July 1937 edition of The Canadian Forum:.

In January 1938 Norman Bethune travelled to Yan'an in the Shanbei region of Shaanxi province in China.

The Lebanese-American doctor George Hatem, who had come to Yan'an earlier, was instrumental in helping Norman Bethune get started at his task of organizing medical services for the front and the region.

In China, Norman Bethune performed emergency battlefield surgical operations on war casualties and established training for doctors, nurses, and orderlies.

Norman Bethune did not distinguish between sides in treating casualties.

Norman Bethune had thoughts on the manner in which medicine was practised, and stated:.

The previous year, Dr Norman Bethune had been declared a Person of National Historic Significance.

In 1998, Norman Bethune was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame located in London, Ontario.

Norman Bethune's archives are held at McGill University in the Osler Library of the History of Medicine.

Virtually unknown in his homeland during his lifetime, Bethune received international recognition when Chairman Mao Zedong of the People's Republic of China published his eulogy entitled In Memory of Norman Bethune, which documented the final months of the doctor's life in China.

Norman Bethune is one of the few Westerners to whom China has dedicated statues, of which many have been erected in his honour throughout the country.

Norman Bethune is buried in the Revolutionary Martyrs' Cemetery, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China, where his tomb and memorial hall lie opposite the tomb of Dwarkanath Kotnis, an Indian doctor honoured for his humanitarian efforts in China.

The biannually awarded Norman Bethune Medal, established in 1991, is the highest medical honour in China, bestowed to up to seven individuals by the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Personnel of China, to recognize outstanding contribution, heroic spirit and great humanitarianism in the medical field.

Norman Bethune is among the "foreign friends of China" that Xi Jinping cites in his foreign policy discourses in an effort to recognize the contributions of other countries to China's national liberation.

Doctor Norman Bethune, was made in 1964; Gerald Tannebaum, an American humanitarian, played Norman Bethune.

Norman Bethune was the subject of a 1964 National Film Board of Canada documentary Norman Bethune, directed by Donald Brittain.

The film includes interviews with many people close to Norman Bethune, including his biographer Ted Allan.

The latter, based on a 1952 book The Scalpel, The Sword; The Story Of Doctor Norman Bethune by Ted Allan and Sydney Gordon, was a co-production of Telefilm Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, FR3 TV France and China Film Co-production.

Rickman's script, based on Roderick Stewart's 1973 biography Norman Bethune, was used in Norman Bethune, the 1977 CBC film production.

Norman Bethune is a character in the novel Los pacientes del doctor Garcia by Almudena Grandes, where he teaches the titular character his blood transfusion techniques in a besieged Madrid during the Spanish Civil War.