Henry Norman Bethune (/ˈbɛθ.juːn/; March 4, 1890[1] – November 12, 1939; Chinese: 白求恩; pinyin: Bái Qiú'ēn[a]) was a Canadian thoracic surgeon, early advocate of socialized medicine, and member of the Communist Party of Canada.

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

Bethune came from a prominent Scottish Canadian family, whose origins can be traced back to the Bethune/Beaton medical kindred who practised medicine in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era.

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

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

[9] As a concerned doctor in Montreal during the economic depression years of the 1930s, Bethune frequently sought out the poor and gave them free medical care.

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

Unable to find a place where he could be used as a surgeon, he seized on an idea which may have been inspired by his limited experience of administering blood transfusions as Head of Thoracic Surgery at the Sacred Heart Hospital in Montreal between 1932 and 1936.

[19] 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.

Above the shattered mountain tops, Last night, rose low and wild and red, Reflecting back from her illumined shield, The blood bespattered faces of the dead.

To that pale disc, we raise our clenched fists, And to those nameless dead our vows renew, "Comrades, who fought for freedom and the future world,

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

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

'[23][24][25]In the summer of 1939 Bethune was appointed medical advisor to the Jin-Cha-Ji (Shanxi-Chahar-Hebei) Border Region Military District, under the direction of General Nie Rongzhen.

Please also make a copy for Committee on International Aid to China and Democratic Alliance of Canada, tell them, I am very happy here ...

[27]In 1973, following the visit of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to China, the Government of Canada purchased the manse of Presbyterian Church in Gravenhurst, in which Bethune was born.

In August 2000, then-Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, who is of Chinese descent, visited Gravenhurst and unveiled a bronze statue of him erected by the town.

The city of Montreal, Quebec, has created a public square and erected a statue of him in his honour, located near the Guy-Concordia Metro station.

[31] Banners with a stylized photo of him titled Local Heroes, hang in the River District of Owen Sound with his birthdate and death and listing his accomplishments as "Surgeon, Inventor, Political Activist, Artist, Writer, Poet".

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 (Chinese: 紀念白求恩),[5] which documented the final months of the doctor's life in China.

The predecessor of this university was the Hygiene School of Jin-Cha-Ji Military Region [zh] of the Eighth Route Army (八路军晋察冀军区卫生学校 in Chinese) founded in 1939 by Bethune's advocacy.

The biannually awarded Bethune Medal [zh] (Chinese: 白求恩奖章), 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.

[38] The 2007 Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival featured as its central theme a memorial to Bethune.

This avenue, which runs parallel to the beach "Crow Rock" direction to Almeria, paid tribute to the solidarity action of Dr. Norman Bethune and his colleagues who helped the population of Málaga during the Spanish Civil War.

During the ceremony, a commemorative plaque was unveiled with the inscription: "Walk of Canadians – In memory of aid from the people of Canada at the hands of Norman Bethune, provided to the refugees of Málaga in February 1937".

[42][43] Donald Sutherland played Bethune in the 1974–75 television show Witness to Yesterday hosted by Patrick Watson.

When the CBC decided to produce a film version of Rod Langley's 1973 play Bethune, they offered the leading role to Donald Sutherland.

Canadian rock group The Tragically Hip wrote their 1992 hit Courage (for Hugh MacLennan) in tribute to the author and in reference to The Watch in particular.

[citation needed] The Secret History of the Intrepids, by D. K. Latta, is an alternate-history fantasy story imagining Norman Bethune, William Stephenson, Grey Owl and others as 1940s superheroes.

In the science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, a foreigner named Mike Evans is given the nickname "Bethune" by the inhabitants of a remote area in northwestern China.