The Long Arm of John T. Law: beyond the walls of a hospital room
Throughout his career, John T. Law encouraged the broadest possible view of the needs of children.
He grew up in Rochester, New York and held various administrative posts at the Yale-New Haven Medical Centre while completing a lectureship in public health at Yale University. But, after moving to Toronto and becoming a Canadian citizen, John T. Law played a prominent role in health planning in the province of Ontario and Canada.
In the early 1950s Law was a part of a survey team headed by Dr. Basil McLean. The survey work done by this team led to the establishment of the Research Institute in 1954. Law came to Toronto and became the Director of The Hospital for Sick Children in 1960 and the Executive Director from 1967 to 1970. While at SickKids, he worked hard to ensure that the Research Institute became a separate department within the Hospital with its own director, budget and administration. As a result of this the institute attracted a number of full-time researchers and expansions of labs and animal facilities were facilitated.
In 1970, after sitting on the SickKids Board of Trustees for two years, Law became the Vice Chair of the Board and took an advanced health administration degree at the University of Toronto. After the completion of this degree, he became the first president of the newly established SickKids Foundation in 1972.
In 1974, SickKids Foundation began offering fellowships in a wide variety of high priority disciplines in paediatric health care. Law headed up a committee to provide guidelines for these fellowships. This fellowship program has been since named the Duncan L. Gordon Fellowship Program in honour of Duncan L. Gordon, former chair of the SickKids Board of Trustees and a member of the SickKids Foundation Board.
Law carried on his vision for a national philanthropic organization for paediatric research. Following his work with SickKids, John T. Law went to Ottawa and established the Canadian Institute of Child Health in July 1977. Unfortunately, he was not able to enjoy the full implementation of his plan as he died of a heart attack in December of that year. The Canadian Institute of Child Health is still active today and along with SickKids Research Institute and SickKids Foundation is fulfilling his vision of improving the quality of life of Canadian children.