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Norman Bethune: a Canadian Hero in China Norman Bethune was born in Graven Hurst, Ontario, Canada in 1890. His family had a long history of human service, a fact that undoubtedly shaped his life in later years. From the outset, as a young university student, he developed a mission, or goal in life, of compassion and commitment to helping the less fortunate to find freedom from the chains of poverty. In earnest, he developed a selflessness that dominated his whole life, but not without personal sacrifice. He was in a troubled marriage that consequently ended in divorce. Progressive medicine and humanitarian deeds became the sole purposes of his life. Understandably, his much younger wife, Frances, could not tolerate this situation. From 1911to 1912, Bethune worked as a lumberjack and teacher in a remote area of Ontario. He taught at “Frontier College”, a unique school that provided basic education to adult workers at the lumber camps. During the First World War, he became a stretcher-bearer . He, himself, was wounded by shrapnel . He was confined, as a patient, to hospitals for months, receiving therapy and recuperating from his injuries. After the war, he completed his internship at the hospital for sick children in London, England, leading to a certificate as “A Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons”. Later, in the United States, Bethune came in contact with poverty and deprivation, but his skills as a doctor also attracted wealthy patients who were willing to pay for services usually denied to the poor. He began to appreciate how money was corrupting the medical system. He developed an acute concern for the unattended medical needs and suffering among the poor. His mission was to relieve, as much as he could, the plight of the less fortunate. He was appalled at the indifference shown by governments to these conditions. It was at his time that his own health suffered a setback. He had developed tuberculosis of the left lung and had to undergo a successful but dangerous operation. This episode with his health had a tremendous impact on his life. It stimulated an interest in thoracic medicine, especially the surgical aspects in this field and for a couple of years he worked at a tuberculosis hospital in the United States. | 
