McPhedran, John Harris

Harris McPhedran was born in 1882 in Lambton County, Ontario, educated locally in Wanstead and Watford, and in 1901 entered the medical program at the University of Toronto where his uncle, Alexander McPhedran, was a professor. He graduated with an MB in 1905 and from 1907 was associated both with the Faculty of Medicine and St. Michael's Hospital. He was renown both as a teacher and a physician, and in 1947 retired from academic work to devote himself to private practice.

One of the original members of the No. 4 Canadian General Hospital, he went overseas in 1915 with the Canadian Army Medical Corps and served at Salonika. Later, after convalescing in Canada from a severe bout of malaria, he served at the CAMC headquarters and with the Ontario Military Hospital at Orpington, Kent. In January, 1918 he was appointed as Officer-in-Charge of Medicine at No. 13 Canadian Military Hospital at Hastings and later at the Canadian General Hospital at Eastbourne. During World War II, he chaired, first, the Military Advisory Committee of the Ontario Medical Association and then the Procurement and Assignment Board.

In 1908 Dr. McPhedran married Florence Davidson, who joined him in England during World War I with their two young daughters, Isobel Catherine (known to all as "Muffie") who was born in 1909, and Elizabeth Alexandra, born in 1911. After the War, the family settled again in Toronto.

Professionally he was an active in and elected president of the Toronto Academy of Medicine (1931), the Ontario Medical Association (1941), and the Canadian Medical Association (1944). Of the last body he served as a member of its executive committee from 1947-1952, as chair of the council, and then as chair of the committee on economics. He was a Canadian representative at the first Commonwealth Medical Conference in Saskatoon in 1949, and at the second in Brisbane, Australia in 1950. In 1951 he visited Britain and reported fully on its national health scheme. In 1947 he was elected to the council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, and in 1953 as its president, chair of the executive committee, and its representative to the Senate of the University of Toronto. In 1956, he resigned to become registrar-general of the College, retiring in 1960 due to ill-health. He then was appointed as consultant to the College until his death on 19 August, 1963.