Robert McKechnie

Robert Edward McKechnie was a Canadian physician and surgeon who lived from 1861 to 1944 and served as the second chancellor of the University of British Columbia. Born in Brockville, Canada West, he studied at McGill University from 1886, took his medical degree in 1890, and moved to British Columbia the next year, practising around Nanaimo for ten years before settling in Vancouver in 1904. He was elected to the council of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia in 1896 and served as its president three times, was the first president of the British Columbia Medical Association in 1899, and held posts as senior surgeon and life governor at Vancouver General Hospital. He helped found the American College of Surgeons and the North Pacific Surgical Society and was president of the Canadian Medical Association in 1914 and 1920. He also sat in the provincial legislature for Nanaimo from 1898. As chancellor from 1918 until his death he served 26 years, longer than any other, and he wrote a history of medicine on the Northwest Coast.