Dr. Sydney Segal Research Grants

A Tangible Legacy

  One ambition is to leave, for the enrichment of future generations, an indestructible legacy that is clearly tangible, but without the transience of material property.

Example of such a legacy would include an artist’s beautiful painting or monument, a composer’s captivating music, a statesman’s contribution to social advancement, or a research scientist’s discovery of a new method for the promotion of health or the conservation of some natural resource.

Paramount in my ambition is for my own legacy to provide such an element.

I would be ever happier if that legacy were to carry a motivating force for some future person to improve its effectiveness.  Subsequently, my identification with the original could disappear.  Anyone who may be aware of the transfer of credit should feel no less satisfied.

-  Written by Sydney Segal, 

    Dated January 24, 1993, found in his papers after his death.

Known as Dr. Segal, St.Segal and the Godfather of SIDS, however you knew him, you couldn’t help but love him!  He had a way of making you feel like you were the only person in the room.  A quiet man, his whole life had been an example of service to others before self. He was unfailingly compassionate and caring no matter what the situation or who the person.  On June 21, 1997, Dr.Sydney Segal died of heart failure after long illness.

When Dr.Segal was inducted as a member of the Order of Canada, the citation read “Professor Emeritus of Paediatrics at the University of British Columbia and Past President of the Canadian Council on Children and Youth, this well respected neonatologist has make a lifelong contribution to the welfare of children everywhere.  He has been actively involved in the areas of medical ethics, fetal medicine, drug addicted newborns, respiratory paediatrics, children with AIDS and sudden infant death syndrome.”

Dr.Segal was honoured with almost every national and international award and honour that exists.  As well as the Order of Canada, this long list includes the Order of British Columbia, and our nation’s highest award for volunteer service, the Canada Volunteer Award of Honour.

After graduating from McGill University, he served his country in World War II and when the war ended he earned his medical degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.  He completed his internship in Vancouver and then trained at Harvard University in neonatology, a new medical specialty at the time.

Renowned as a medical pioneer, his numerous innovations in the pediatric field are now taken for granted.  His early research work at Harvard helped establish our present understanding of breathing mechanics in the newborn.  He paved the way for new concepts and methods for intensive-care of the newborn and in the transport of sick infants, and he designed some early innovations for life support of infants requiring respiratory assistance.  He was a consultant with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland for 18 years.  Until his retirement, he remained at the University of BC as a professor in the Faculty of Pediatrics where he published more than 100 scientific papers.

SIDS had been a concern of Dr.Segal since his initial days as a pediatrician in the 50’s as he always had an inquiring mind and always had an interest in unsolved problems in health care. The death of his daughter due to SIDS in 1957 brought him even closer to the problem.

In 1973, Dr.Segal became one of the founders of The Canadian Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths and sat on its medical advisory committee from the beginning.  He was a driving force in pulling together the first Canadian SIDS conference held in 1974 and until his death, volunteered as a National Board member and a parent counsellor to his local Vancouver SIDS chapter.

Dr.Segal opened the first intensive-care unit for newborns at Vancouver General Hospital.  His achievements include establishing the first “Blue Code” service in Canada for resuscitating emergency-room patients, the first intensive-care system for infants in transit to hospitals and the first transportable incubator system in Canada.  He also invented the first apparatus to substitute mechanical for natural breathing in infants with respiratory failure. 

Dr.Sydney Segal worked on behalf of others until the end and left this world a better place than he found it.  We miss you Syd.  Take care of our angels..