The Pioneering Chown Family

Monday, January 23, 2012

If you’re familiar with the history of the Children’s Hospital, you probably know the name Chown and the legacy left behind by several individuals on the vanguard of improving healthcare in Manitoba.

Margaret Morse (Chown) is a retired speech language pathologist, longtime donor of the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba, and the daughter of the late Gordon Chown (1888-1949), who was chief of pediatrics at Children's Hospital for many years.

Bruce Chown (1893-1986), Margaret’s second cousin, was a former pediatrician at Children’s Hospital and internationally known for his groundbreaking research with RH disease of the newborn, and Henry Havelock Chown (1868-1944), Margaret’s third cousin, made house calls by horse and buggy as the first surgeon in Manitoba.

“My father was reputed by the staff as an intuitive diagnostician of children's diseases. He would say when giving lectures to the interns, ‘Don't treat the baby like a China doll. Use your hands and feel the baby to determine the cause of the problem,’” she says.

Gordon was known as ‘Professor of Commonology’ for his intuitive diagnostic skills and Bruce as ‘Professor of Rareology.’ Each of them knew how to handle the common and the rare, according to Margaret.

“They were highly skilled in their fields,” she says.

Margaret was first exposed to children with speech and swallowing disorders when she worked as a nursery school assistant in the Cerebral Palsy Clinic at the Children’s Hospital. These children received physiotherapy and occupational therapy, but there was no speech therapist on staff to assess and provide treatment. After completing a graduate program in Speech Pathology and Audiology at Kent State University in Ohio, Margaret established the first Speech and Hearing Clinic at the Children’s Hospital in Manitoba.

“The irony of that is that most of the referring doctors had never heard of speech therapy,” she says. “Now there are waiting lists everywhere for diagnostic and treatment services for children and adults with communication disorders.”

With the same pioneering spirit as her family, Margaret worked tirelessly to build awareness towards the need for more speech pathology services for children and adults in local hospitals and schools. Margaret helped pave the way for the future of speech therapy in Manitoba: Her efforts were the impetus in establishing speech centres in five major hospitals throughout the city.

The legacy left behind by the Chown family extends far beyond the walls of the Children’s Hospital. The work of these pioneer healthcare practitioners can still be felt in the excellent standard of care we receive today.

 Above: Margaret Morse (Chown). Above right: Dr. Bruce Chown with Dr. Irene Uchida