Charles Best
When Charles Best received the Canada Gairdner International Award, it was recognition that had been a long time coming for a man who had spent decades at the intersection of physiology, biochemistry, and medicine. Born on February 27, 1899, in Washington County, Best would go on to become a Canadian citizen whose career left him among the most decorated medical scientists of his era.
Best attended Harbord Collegiate Institute before going on to study at the University of Toronto, the institution that would remain central to his professional life. He worked as a physician, physiologist, and biochemist, building a career that earned him an unusually broad range of honors. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, distinctions that placed him in company with the leading scientists of his time. His other honors included the Baly Medal, the Flavelle Medal, and the Croonian Medal and Lecture. He also received the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and was later recognized with both the Member and Companion of the Order of Canada — two separate grades of the same national honor.
Best was inducted into both the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, acknowledgments that spanned the practical and the scientific dimensions of his work. He died on March 31, 1978, in Toronto, the city so closely associated with his career. The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame induction stands as a concrete marker of how his contributions to medicine were regarded by his own country's medical community.
Quotes by Charles Best
My colleagues and I were always having the same conversation in the teachers lunchroom about books we wanted our students to read, a field trip we knew would really bring a subject matter to life... And most of us would go into our own pockets to buy just paper and pencils.
We will employ almost every strategy and hustle in any possible way to recruit top engineers to our team.
Hardworking, passionate teachers know their students' needs better than anyone else in the school environment. If we can tap into their needs, we can unleash smarter solutions and empower those people on the front lines.
We aren't prescribing anything. We're not claiming to be the experts. We aren't advocating for or against any program. We are going to create a platform that says very explicitly what it is that teachers experience in their classrooms.
We want to use our site to galvanize people to give but also to take important steps toward real change.
Well, just as in the quality of public schools, there is massive disparity and the compensation given to the public school teachers.
KIPP schools would be just a shining example of schools where students aren't just given homework and taught imaginative ways, but they're really brought into a culture of education.
If you just believe in our democracy, and you want an informed electorate, public schools are in your interest, and I think our country is dependent on public schools, whether or not you personally have a kid in the public school system.