Vivian McAlister
- Adjunct Professor
MB, Trinity College Dublin, 1979; Fellow, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, 1990; Professor emeritus.
Email:vmcalist@uwo.ca
Research Interests
Dr. McAlister is a physician who researches the medical and military history of Canada. He was a transplant surgeon and a military surgeon before joining the department of history. He is the Canadian president of the James IV Association of Surgeons. His selected works are available here
Medical School at Western University
A current project is to complete a history of the Harvey Club of London. The following articles on the careers of Western surgeons have been published:
- The Life of John Wishart (1850-926); study of an academic surgical career prior to the Flexner Report
- Medical response to the declaration of the First World War: The case of Edwin Seaborn
Dictionary of Canadian Biography
The following biographies are published, or currently being processed for publication, by the Dictionary of Canadian Biography:
- Scrimger, Francis Alexander Carron (1880-1937): Dedicated physician and one of only two Canadian-born medical officers to receive the Victoria Cross during the First World War
- Abraham Groves (1847-1935): pioneering surgeon from Fergus, Ontario
- Forbes Elliott Godfrey (1867-1932): Ontario’s first minister of health.
- Paul Weatherbe (1869 - 1928): military engineer who organized the initial medical response to the Halifax Explosion in 1917.
- Guy Carleton Jones (1865-1950): Canadian surgeon-general during the First World War who was a prisoner of the Italians during the Second World War.
History of Surgery in Canada
Dr. McAlister is co-editor of the TSpace archive historyofsurgery.ca at the University of Toronto. He is the author or co-author on the following articles:
- Origins of the Canadian school of surgery
- A surgical review of the priority claims attributed to Abraham Groves (1847-1935)
- Dr. Louis Kristal at 100: witness to the evolution of surgery in Canada
- Continuing a long tradition: the Canadian Journal of Surgery at 60
- Canada, incubator of Black American surgeons (in Black surgerons and surgery in America)
Canadian Medical Schools in the First World War
Dr. McAlister edited a series of articles in the Canadian Journal of Surgery investigating the contributions of Canadian medical schools to the medical effort in the First World war. He is the author or co-author on the following articles in the series:
- After the war is over: the role of General Sir Arthur Currie in the development of academic medicine in Canada.
- Massacre of Canadian Army Medical Corps personnel after the sinking of HMHS Llandovery Castle and the evolution of modern war crime jurisprudence
- The Canadian Army Medical Corps affair of 1916 and Surgeon General Guy Carleton Jones
- Calgary, Edmonton and the University of Alberta: the extraordinary medical mobilization by Canada’s newest province
- Somewhere in France (9 April 17): a centenary review of medical arrangements at Vimy Ridge
- Western University (No. 10 Canadian Stationary Hospital and No. 14 Canadian General Hospital): a study of medical volunteerism in the First World War
Recent Publications
- Slipping into a Life of Crime Against Humanity, Geopolitical Monitor (March 2023)
- Radical Politics on the Wane in Northern Ireland, Geopolitical Monitor (March 2023)
- Putin's Choice on Ukraine, Geopolitical Monitor (Dec 2022)
- The Common Travel Area: An Anglo-Irish Centenary Worth Celebrating, Geopolitical Monitor (Aug 2022)
Recent Presentations
- Ukraine's Missing Children: Slipping into a Life of War Crime, Interview with Faculti.net (August 2024)
- Centenary of the Common Travel Area Agreement Between the UK and Ireland: a model for border conflict avoidance Royal Canadian Military Institute (June, 2022)
- Death of Tecumseh, perspectives of history. (in Events Revisited: Indigenous and Black Perspectives & the Importance of Memory), Canadian Society for the History of Medicine
- Kandahar to Canada: learning trauma surgery from transplantation surgery (2021 Charter Day Lecture, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland)
- National Security protections should be applied to Canada's supply of essential medicines and vaccines. Defence and security studies, Royal Canadian Military Institute (2021)
- Medical non-combatant status in modern conflicts. Defence and security studies, Royal Canadian Military Institute (2020)