Norman Bethune’s legacy lives on

This year marks the 80th anniversary of Canadian Dr Norman Bethune’s journey to China and the eighth anniversary of the founding of the Bethune Medical Development Association of Canada, or BMDAC.

The lucky number eight connects the professional medical communities across the Pacific.

Eighty years ago, Bethune journeyed thousands of kilometers to support China during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45). He formed a battlefield medical team and set up a medical training institution at the front. In his bid to rescue seriously wounded soldiers, as well as tend to ailing villagers, he sacrificed his own life, dying of blood poisoning.

Eight years ago, a group of Chinese and Canadian medical professionals established the BMDAC. It aims to promote the spirit of Bethune and bring health benefits to the general public through exchanges and cooperation between medical institutions in China and Canada.

A dozen Canadian medical experts were given the Bethune Medical Development Award for their commitment to excellence and their contributions to the medical community in Canada and China recently in Toronto.

“We had been traveling China for 10 years before we started the organization,” recalled Dr Lee E. Errett, professor of global surgery at the University of Toronto and president of the BMDAC.

“It grew organically and quickly. We have a large number of volunteers who want to go to China, they offer free medical care and education, and they want to leave something sustainable in China.”

The volunteers have visited 80 hospitals and universities in China, providing surgeons and training.

Dr David Wong, an ophthalmologist at St Michael Hospital, has worked with BMDAC since 2015.

“I went to China at least once a year,” he said. “There is a lot of learning going back and forth. We have a lot of technologies here that are the best in the world. We bring the technology to China, but the interesting thing is that you can also learn how Chinese people do surgery.”

Wong, who is originally from Hong Kong, said it is more than just exchanging surgical techniques and ideas, it is also exchanging the cultures, understanding how people relate to each other. “It is part of my culture,” he said. “To help the Chinese people makes me get back to my roots.”

Canadian doctors volunteer for two to three weeks a year in China. They usually use their holidays; even though it sacrifices their family time, they said they enjoy volunteering in China.

“It’s a great opportunity to meet surgeons from around the world and China, and to show them what we can do and also learn from them. It’s been a wonderful experience,” said Dr Howard Ginsberg, a spinal neurosurgeon.

To them, it’s not just the volunteering but also the friendships that have developed.

“Even today some of our previous visitors are back here to visit us again. It’s a great opportunity for both sides,” said Dr Henry Ahn, who is also a spinal surgeon.

As an old Chinese saying goes: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” It has become the philosophy of the organization.

Dr Yves Leclerc, a cardiac surgeon at St. Mary’s General Hospital and recipient of the Lackner Award for Medical Excellence, has been to China eight times over the past eight years. He has served in hospitals in Fujian, Shandong, Jiangsu and other provinces. But what he is most proud of is his students.

“My Chinese students stayed with me in different cities to do the cardiology surgery. They got very good training in China. I volunteer because I can teach the surgery,” he said.

Leclerc said his hometown is Montreal, where Bethune studied and worked productively for eight years.

“It’s amazing that Chinese people know Dr Bethune more than people in Canada. I am doing new technology and research now and I hope to spread the technology to China, and I hope to be able to facilitate exchanges between my students,” he said.

Over the past eight years, Canadian doctors through the BMDAC have been to more than 40 Chinese cities in provinces of Shandong, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Fujian, Henan, Guizhou and Qinghai.