saving countless lives.
Just a few years later, Norman Bethune was volunteering again, this time to help the
communist side in the Chinese Civil War, then staying on to help during China’s war
with the Japanese. He did everything from performing emergency battlefield surgery to
establishing training programs for doctors and nurses, and organizing medical services.
Norman Bethune was known for helping anyone who needed him, and for putting the
lives and health of others before his own. He died of blood poisoning after cutting his
finger while performing an emergency surgery in 1939.
The story of this selfless man might have been forgotten, but Chinese leader Mao Zedong
wrote a story about Dr. Bethune and it became required reading in every school in China.
Even today, decades after his death, Norman Bethune is remembered and honored across
the nation he gave his life to help.
In Canada, Dr. Bethune has been inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, been
honored with a Canadian stamp, had schools named after him, and been the subject of
films and TV shows.
Both nations remember him as a medical pioneer and a noble humanitarian.
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