Editing Norman Bethune (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Historic House in Fall2006.JPG|thumb|left|250px|Norman Bethune's birthplace, now [[Bethune Memorial House]]]]
<!-- Commented out because image was deleted: [[File:Dr_Bethune_In_Battlefield.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Dr. Bethune performing a surgical operation close to a battlefield, October 1939, by prominent Chinese photographer of women.Wu Yinxian]] -->

Bethune was born in [[Gravenhurst, Ontario|Gravenhurst]], [[Ontario]], on March 4, 1890. His birth certificate erroneously stated March 3.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stewart |first1=Roderick |last2=Stewart |first2=Sharon |title=Phoenix: The Life of Norman Bethune |year=2011 |url={{google books|u4eKCrdHwVgC|plainurl=yes|page=7}} |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-3819-1 |ref=StewartStewart2011}}, p. 7</ref>{{Failed verification|date=February 2022}} His siblings were his sister Janet and brother Malcolm.

As a youth, Bethune attended [[Owen Sound Collegiate and Vocational Institute|Owen Sound Collegiate Institute]], graduating in 1907. After a brief period as a primary school teacher in [[Edgeley, Vaughan|Edgeley]], in 1909, he enrolled at the University of Toronto to study physiology and biochemistry.<ref name = "Li2003">Shenwen Li, [https://web.archive.org/web/20130618023728/http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bethune_henry_norman_16E.html “Bethune, Henry Norman”] in ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'', vol. 16, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003, accessed May 25, 2020.</ref> He interrupted his studies for one year in 1911 to be a volunteer labourer-teacher with the Reading Camp Association (later [[Frontier College]]) at a remote [[lumber camp]] near [[Whitefish River (Sudbury District)|Whitefish, Sudbury]].<ref name = "Li2003"/> He returned to the University of Toronto in the fall of 1912, this time in the faculty of medicine.<ref name = "Li2003"/>

In 1914, when [[World War I]] was declared in Europe, he once again suspended his medical studies after being accepted into the [[Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps]]. Bethune joined the Canadian Army's No. 2 Field Ambulance to serve as a stretcher-bearer in France. He was wounded by [[Fragmentation (weaponry)|shrapnel]] at the [[Second Battle of Ypres]] and sent to an English hospital to recover, repatriating to Canada in October 1915.<ref name = "Li2003"/> When he had recuperated from his injuries, he returned to Toronto to complete his medical degree. He received his M.D. in 1916.<ref name="archives.cbc.ca"/>