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Ross Russell was born in Russell Greenberg on January 30, 1911, in Toronto, Ontario. He was born to James Greenberg and Rose Wermes, who were non-practicing Jews. Both of Russell’s parents were born in the United States but came to Canada to raise their family.

Russell lived and attended school in Toronto, but at the age of 18 left school and started work at FW Woolworth Company in North York, transferring after a year and a half to the Montreal location as an assistant manager. In the early 1930s, the Depression occurred, and Adolph Hitler came to power, prompting Russell to start educating himself on world politics and conflicts. When the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, Russell followed the story closely. It was at this time that he married, and his wife became one of the leaders of a local committee dedicated to helping the Spanish. In 1937, Russell left his job and signed onto the International Brigades, ready to travel overseas and help in the Spanish conflict. He and his fellows secretively journeyed to Spain by way of France, enacting a “spy thriller-esque” sequence of covert meetings, midnight bus convoys, and a march over the Pyrenees Mountains.

Once at the Albacete headquarters of the International Brigades, the men were divided into language groups and Canada was paired up with America and England to form the 15th Brigade. Russell was trained to be a machine gunner and moved many times with his company but didn’t see any action until the fight for Tervel. During this battle, he was hit in the back by shrapnel and had to be taken first to hospital and then a convalescent home in Denia. After recovering from this injury, misfortune struck again when the train Russell was travelling in was bombed and he was once more hit by a bomb fragment. In the early summer of 1938, Russell was in a hospital in Valencia when the city was bombed, delaying his departure from Spain.

Russell returned home to Montreal in February of 1938 and, after a period of recovery, was scouted to manage a new location of the Federal Store, on the condition that he change his original surname of Greenberg, which he did. However, after only a year and a half, he got a more attractive offer from a store in Toronto and moved back with his wife, enlisting in the army reserves once there. In the 1970s, Russell joined the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion Veterans, an association committed to gaining official veteran status for those Canadians who fought in the Spanish Civil War. He eventually become president of the association and remained an active member until his death in 1990.

Dr. David Lawrence Sackett (1934-2015) was a physician, clinical scientist, and educator who is widely considered the father of evidence-based medicine.

Born and raised in suburban Chicago, Illinois, USA, Sackett earned a B.A. degree in 1956 from Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin, and a B.Sc. in 1958 and an M.D. in 1960 from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago specializing in internal medicine and nephrology. He was then a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institutes of Health before being drafted into the armed forces as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sackett was allocated to the U.S. Public Health Service and positioned at the Chronic Disease Research Institute at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Here, his interest shifted from laboratory to clinical medicine, particularly clinical epidemiology. In 1967, he earned an M.Sc. degree in epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1967, Sackett moved to Hamilton, Ontario to establish in McMaster University’s new School of Medicine the world’s first Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, in which he became an Associate Professor and of which he became the first Chair. He was promoted to the rank of Professor in 1970. In 1974 and 1975, he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Community Medicine at St. Thomas’s Hospital Medical School in London, England, working with Dr. Walter W. Holland. At McMaster, Sackett conducted novel research into the effects of aspirin and carotid endarterectomy in reducing the chances of stroke; care and treatment options for those suffering from hypertension; and the effectiveness of nurse practitioners. He led the creation of an M.Sc. program in clinical epidemiology and health care research methods, and persuaded McMaster not to create a Department of Public Health so that the ideas of epidemiology would not be isolated in one department.

In 1983, in an effort to keep up-to-date clinically, Sackett undertook a two-year residency in hospitalist internal medicine. He subsequently served as Physician-in-Chief at Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals and then, beginning in 1990, as Head of the Division of General Internal Medicine for the Hamilton region and Attending Physician at Henderson General Hospital.

During his time in Hamilton, Sackett worked to develop the concept of evidence-based medicine, which posits that patient care should be based on a critical appraisal of the best and most up-to-date scientific evidence, clinical expertise, and patient values, as opposed to tradition, authority, and subjective judgement. It requires that randomized clinical trials (RCTs) be conducted to determine the efficacy of diagnostic tests and treatments and that the results of these trials be made accessible to and be trusted by physicians. For this reason, Sackett spent much time examining and improving the ways in which RCTs are carried out as well as actually carrying them out. Evidence-based medicine further requires that the results of each trial be compared with those of other trials concerning the same medical condition. In 1993, an international charitable organization, the Cochrane Collaboration, was formed to oversee the undertaking of this work by volunteer experts. Sackett became the first Chair of its Steering Group.

The following year, Sackett left McMaster and moved to England to become the founding Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford and a clinician at John Radcliffe Hospital. While at Oxford, Sackett traveled extensively within the United Kingdom and Europe, visiting hospitals and teaching medical professionals about evidence-based medicine, which, as a result, gained great popularity. He also became the founding Co-Editor of the journal Evidence-Based Medicine. Wanting to make way for new thinking, Sackett gave his final lecture on evidence-based medicine in 1999.

That same year, Sackett officially retired from academia and clinical practice and returned to Canada. In Irish Lake, Ontario, he founded and became the Director of the Kilgore S. Trout Research & Education Centre (now based in Hamilton), where he read, researched, wrote, and taught about RCTs. Sackett also served as an expert witness in lawsuits against Big Pharma.

Dr. Sackett died in Markdale, Ontario on 13 May 2015 at the age of 80 due to cholangiocarcinoma (cancer of the bile duct).

Throughout his life, Sackett published twelve books, about sixty book chapters, and over four hundred articles in medical and scientific journals, and earned numerous prestigious awards and honours, including an Honorary Doctorate of Science from McMaster in 2009.

Earle Parkhill Scarlett was born in High Bluff, Manitoba in 1896 to Reverend Robert A. Scarlett and Alma Parkhill Scarlett. In 1906, the family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Scarlett left home at the age of 15 and made his way by teaching summer school. He entered Wesley College (now the University of Winnipeg) at 16 where he pursued his Bachelor of Arts. During this time, he served as editor of the college journal, Vox Wesleyana. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in 1916, Scarlett joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force and fought in WWI, becoming severely wounded in the Battle of Arras. Following his time in the military, Scarlett decided to study medicine and enrolled at the University of Toronto. While there, he fostered his passion for academic journals, founding and editing the first undergraduate medical journal in North America, the University of Toronto Medical Journal. Scarlett achieved his Bachelor of Medicine in 1924 and that same year he married Jean Odell, with whom he went on to have three children, Robert, Elizabeth, and Katherine.

After graduation, Scarlett did his postgraduate work and fellowship at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan from 1925-27. He was then an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the State University of Lowa from 1927-30. In 1930, Scarlett moved back to Canada, settling in Calgary, Alberta where he joined the Calgary Associate Clinic as a specialist in internal medicine. From 1931-51, he conducted sexual education classes for high school boys through the YMCA, the first venture of its kind in the city. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada in 1932 and a fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1946. Along with his Clinic colleague Dr. George Stanley, Scarlett founded the Historical Bulletin, a quarterly medical history journal, which ran from 1936-58. Scarlett served as president of the Calgary Associate Clinic as well as a senior consultant in medicine at Colonel Belcher Hospital, both from 1947-58.

Dr. Earle Parkhill Scarlett received honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto, the University of Alberta, and the University of Calgary. Scarlett was a prolific writer, authoring more than 450 papers, articles, monographs, and book contributions. He died in 1982 at the age of 86.

Ronald Schofield was born in Lancashire, England in 1912 and immigrated to Canada in 1928 to join his father and brother. In 1931 Schofield travelled around the country to work in government camps with the many other unemployed men affected by the Great Depression. In 1935, Schofield participated in the “On-to-Ottawa trek”, a mass protest movement organized by restless relief camp workers. This event is widely recognized as helping to unseat Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s Conservative government in the next election.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, Schofield became interested in the plight of the Spanish people and feared, like many others, that the conflict could ignite another World War. He vowed to get involved and in spring of 1937, travelled to Spain as part of the International Brigades. Schofield first served as an infantryman until a slight wound and bout of anemia landed him in a convalescent hospital near Madrid, Spain. When the hospital’s quartermaster post became vacant, Schofield filled it and stayed on for three months until the hospital was shut down. He was then sent to Teruel, Spain to join the Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. In summer 1938, Schofield took a two-week first aid course and became a first aid man, stretcher-bearer, and grave digger.

After the dissolution of the International Brigades when the Civil War ended, Schofield and other soldiers were kept for some time and interviewed in Ripoll, Spain, near the French border. The Americans and English were sent home, but the Canadians were not. It was only because he was suffering from acute dysentery and his status as a British citizen that Schofield was allowed to leave for England. He remained there for three months convalescing before he was given passage back to Canada.

On December 13, 1995, the school was renamed to the School of Rehabilitation Science.

Harold Nathan Segall was born in Jassy, Romania on October 17, 1897, to Fischel Segall and Craina Solomon under the Hebrew name Chain Nissin Segall. In 1990, he migrated to Canada with his family, living in the French-Canadian district in Montreal. He received medical training at the McGill medical school from 1915 to 1920 and served as an assistant curator at McGill for a year after graduation. He worked briefly in the Department of Pathology at McGill before leaving for Boston, where he worked with Dr. James H. Means ‘s thyroid clinic as an assistant and later worked for Paul White and Starling in cardiology. Funded by the Libman Fellowship, Dr. Segall went to Europe in1924, during which period of time he traveled to London, Vienna and Paris, obtaining specialized training and clinical experience in cardiology. In 1926, Dr. Segall returned to Montreal. Appointed as an assistant demonstrator in medicine at McGill, he participated in the establishment of the cardiac clinic at the Montreal General Hospital, one of Canada's first cardiac clinics. In late 1920’s, Dr. Segall opened cardiac clinics at the Herzel Dispensary and the Women's General Hospital (later Reddy Memorial Hospital). From 1928 to 1929, Dr. Segall was involved in the campaign of building a Jewish hospital and later became one of the chiefs of the hospital. from 1934 on, Dr. Segall concentrated his activities at the Jewish General Hospital, where he ran the largest cardiac clinic in the city and gave extensive courses in cardiology to general practitioners. He was also the first in Canada to have an official post-graduate course in electrocardiography, which promoted the use of portable electrocardiographs in Canada.

As Montreal's first fully trained cardiologist and the leader of cardiology, Dr. Segall contributed to the profession in many capacities. He acted as an assistant Professor at the Montreal General Hospital in clinical medicine from 1949 to 1960, becoming the first Jew in the hospital to rise to the position of lecturer and then the associate in medicine. He served as the secretary of the Montreal Clinical Society for a number of years and became the president of the Montreal Clinical Society in 1937. He was actively involved in the founding of the Montreal Cardiac Society in 1946, the Canadian Heart Association in 1947, the Canadian Heart Foundation, and the Quebec Heart Foundation and became the president of the Canadian Heart Association, the Montreal Cardiac Society, and the Quebec Heart Foundation, as well as vice-president of the Canadian Heart Foundation. Dr. Segall also took a strong interest in medical history and published many works on the history of his field, including Pioneers of Cardiology in Canada, 1820-1970: The Genesis of Canadian Cardiology. He was made the honorary president of the McGill's Osler Society twice and was a curator of McGill's Osler Library of the History of Medicine.

Dr. Segall married Dorothy Violet Caplin (Dolly) in Montreal in 1934, with whom he had two children: Carol Tova Segall (born 15 Nov. 1934) and Jack Oba Segall (born 20 Nov. 1936). Dr. Segall died in 1990 in Montreal at the age of 92.

William Frederick Slater was born in Birmingham, England on September 2nd, 1908, to James and Julia Slater. When he was about 6 years old, his father was called up for service in the First World War and lost his life due to injuries from shrapnel. Slater started education at a grammar school in Chester, England, and, at the age of 14, he went to Canada, where he attended high school at Copetown and Hagersville along with his cousin. After graduation from high school, he worked at different jobs in Hagersville as a truck driver, a staff in a bakery and a worker in a stone quarry. In the meanwhile, he taught himself sociology and economics, getting acquainted with the intellectuals and philosophy of the left-wing politics. He also volunteered at the office of The Daily Worker (later The Clarion), the communist newspaper at that time.

With the outbreak of Spanish Civil War, Slater left for Spain in July 1937. He went from Toronto to La Harve, from La Harve to Paris, and Paris to Perpignan, marching over the Pyrenees and finally reached Figueras, an old fortress in the north of Spain. Along with other 95 or so volunteers, he was assembled at Albacete, the headquarter of the International Brigade. Due to his ability to drive and speak Spanish, he was kept around Albacete as an ambulance driver, serving for the 15th Division Service Sanitaire. Slater returned to Canada on 11 February 1939 and was later involved with the MacPap Veterans Association.

Slater passed away in 1982.

Dora Alice Sly was a patient at the Mountain Sanatorium for six months in 1940. She was born on May 15, 1913 and graduated as a nurse from Brockville Ontario Hospital in 1936. She worked at the Woodstock Ontario Hospital when it opened in 1940. She contacted Tuberculosis and was sent to the Mountain Sanatorium for treatment. She married Walter Gilbert on August 30, 1946 and they had two children together: George Edward and Sandra Elizabeth. After her husband passed away in 1955, she returned to work at the Oxford Regional Centre until her retirement in 1978. She passed away in 1984.