What do an itinerant savant, a
senator, a Nobel Prize nominee, a contraception renegade
and an unforgettable shrink have in common?
Each and every one of them is a
Canadian healthcare hero and they've all been chosen
as the 2007 inductees to the Canadian Medical Hall of
Fame. Past recipients have included such luminaries
as Dr Wilder Graves Penfield, Sir William Osler, Dr
Frederick Grant Banting and Dr Charles Scriver.
The 2007 inductees were selected
from a distinguished list of nominees for either a single
groundbreaking contribution or a lifetime of achievements.
They will be formally inducted on October 2 in London,
ON.
Dr Elizabeth Bagshaw |
Dr
Elizabeth Bagshaw
(1881-1982)
Born on a farm in Victoria County, Ontario, in 1881,
Elizabeth Bagshaw, the youngest of four daughters, became
one of Canada's first female doctors.
Though trained as an FP, obstetrics
was the mainstay of her practice in Hamilton. For three
consecutive years she signed more birth certificates
than any other physician in the city. From 1932 to 1966,
she served as medical director of the country's first
(and perfectly illegal) birth control clinic.
In 1973 Dr Bagshaw was made a member
of the Order of Canada. Several other honours followed,
including the Governor General's Award in Commemoration
of the Persons Case "to recognize outstanding contributions
to the quality of life of women in Canada." She retired
in 1976, at the age of 95, the oldest practising physician
in Canada at the time. She was 100 years old when she
died on January 5, 1982.
Dr Felix d'Herelle |
Dr
Felix d'Herelle
(1873-1949)
Felix d'Herelle, the Montreal-born microbiologist who's
been dubbed the "Indiana Jones of science," revolutionized
the treatment of infectious diseases like cholera and
plague through his discovery of bacteriophages —
tiny viruses that attack bacteria. His passion for travel,
and for his work, brought this self-taught scientist
across Europe, North and South America — in phage-mad
Russia, he was welcomed by Joseph Stalin as a hero.
The advent of penicillin put "phage therapy" on the
back burner, but his work is recognized as having laid
the foundation for molecular biology.
Dr Jean Dussault |
Dr
Jean Dussault
(1941-2003)
During his tenure in the department of endocrinology
and metabolism at Laval University in Quebec City in
the mid 1970s, Dr Dussault helped develop a simple blood
test for congenital hypothyroidism, a condition that
causes severe physical and mental disability. The accomplishment
won him a nomination for the Nobel Prize in Medicine
in 1982.
Despite its worldwide use —
in 2000, an estimated 150 million newborns had been
screened using it — Dr Dussault never attempted
to patent the test, insisting it was "part of the public
domain." He continued instead with his basic research
on the mechanism of action of thyroid hormones and,
in 1988, produced the first monoclonal antibody against
the thyroid hormone receptor.
Senator Dr Wilbert Keon |
Senator
Dr Wilbert Keon
(1935- )
Perhaps best known as the first Canadian surgeon to
perform an artificial heart transplant in 1986, Dr Keon
is also the founder of theUniversity of Ottawa Heart
Institute at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. Under his leadership,
the facility evolved into an internationally recognized
Centre of Excellence for Cardiac Care, Research and
Education with a budget of over $180 million annually.
In 1984 Dr Keon was made an Officer
of the Order of Canada and appointed to the Senate by
Brian Mulroney in 1990.
Dr Endel Tulving |
Dr
Endel Tulving
(1927- )
You must remember Dr Tulving. Since the late 1960s,
his often-controversial opinions about how memories
are stored and retrieved have been stirring up the cognitive
science community. In 1972, Dr Tulving proposed that
there are two types of memories — episodic and
semantic. Episodic memories (recollections of a person's
own experience), he argued are vastly different from
the other random bits of information we tend to hold
onto — semantic memories. After a while his detractors
could no longer argue back, and his work laid the foundation
for the important field of memory research.
Dr Tulving, who will turn 80 in
May, is currently the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Chair in
Cognitive Neuroscience, Rotman Research Institute, at
the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto.
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