Virtually unknown in his homeland during his lifetime, Doctor Bethune finally received international recognition when Chairman
Mao Zedong of the
People's Republic of China published his essay entitled
In Memory of Norman Bethune (in Chinese: 紀念白求恩), which documented the final months of the doctor's life in China. Mao made the essay required reading for the entire Chinese population. Mao concluded in that essay:
We must all learn the spirit of absolute selflessness from him. With this spirit everyone can be very helpful to each other. A man's ability may be great or small, but if he has this spirit, he is already noble-minded and pure, a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests, a man who is of value to the people.
Bethune University of Medical Sciences in
Changchun, Bethune College at
York University, and
Dr Norman Bethune Collegiate Institute (a secondary school) in
Scarborough, Ontario, were named after Dr. Bethune. Heroic statues of Bethune have been erected throughout China.
The Canadian government purchased his father's and his neighbour's house in Gravenhurst and restored the houses into the
Bethune Memorial House in 1976. The house is a
National Historic Site of Canada. In August 2002, then
Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, who has Chinese ancestry, visited the house and unveiled a bronze statue of him.
Montreal created a public square and erected a statue in his honour, near
Guy-Concordia metro station. As of November 2007, the square is under reconfiguration and the statue has been removed for restoration.
Bethune improved upon a number of surgical instruments. His most famous instrument was the "Bethune Rib Shears"
http://www.mta.ca/faculty/arts/canadian_studies/english/about/study_guide/doctors/mobile_blood.html.
Dr. Bethune (), One of the most successful Chinese movies was made in 1964 in memory of him, in which Gerald Tannebaum (), an American humanitarian, played Bethune.
Donald Sutherland played Bethune in two
biographical films:
Bethune (1977), made for television on a low budget, and
Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1990). The latter was a co-production of
Telefilm Canada, the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, FR3 TV France and China Film Co-production.
In March 1990, to commemorate the centenary of his birth, Canada and China each issued two postage stamps of the same design in his honour.
In 1998, he was inducted into the
Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.
In the CBC's
The Greatest Canadian program in 2004, he was voted the 26th Greatest Canadian by viewers. In 2006
China Central Television produced a 20-part drama series,
Dr Norman Bethune, documenting his life, which with a budget of
Yuan 30 million (US$3.75 million) was the most expensive Chinese TV series to date.
He attended Owen Sound Collegiate in
Owen Sound, Ontario, now known as
Owen Sound Collegiate And Vocational Institute. He graduated from OSCVI in 1911 along with
William Avery "Billy" Bishop. Both names are inscribed on the School's Great War Memorial.
He is buried in
Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province,
China, where his tomb along with that of Dr.
Dwarkanath Kotnis lie next to great memorials and statues to their honour.
The 2006 novel
The Communist's Daughter, by
Dennis Bock, is a fictionalized account of Bethune's life.
The book of short stories, "Cottage Gothic", by
Martin Avery, contains fictionalized accounts of Bethune's life, particularly in the story "Chinese Gold", which also appeared in Best Canadian Stories. Both books were published by Oberon Press.
Norman Bethune on "youtube":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA2P59cSXAA
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