Head and shoulders image of Dr. J. Wendell Macleod, Dean, College of Medicine, 1952-1962.

Bio/Historical Note: Dr. John Wendell Macleod was born in 1905 in Kingsbury, Ontario, and spent his formative years there. He graduated from McGill in 1929, winning the Holmes gold medal. After specialty training in gastroenterology, he practised in Montreal. During World War II Dr. Macleod served as an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy in Halifax. From 1945 to 1952 he practised internal medicine in Winnipeg. But change was imminent, in both his career and his profession. During the post-war years, a new perspective on patient care was emerging, one that emphasized social and cultural factors. To Dr. Macleod and others, these changes necessitated a major revision in medical education. Popularly known as Saskatchewan's Red Dean because of his progressive views and strong support of Canada's first medicare plan, Dr. Macleod was a charismatic pioneer in social medicine and medical education. He was an ardent believer in the social principles of health care. Dr. Macleod’s early awareness of the economic chasm that separated rich from poor provided the focal point of his career as first dean of medicine at the University of Saskatchewan - he taught that understanding the social, economic, and political world in which people lived was critical to good medical education and practice and made it the core of the curriculum. Dr. Macleod was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1980. He died in North Hero, Vermont on 10 June 2001 at age 96.