William Feindel

Who was William Feindel?

William Howard Feindel, OC GOQ FRSC was a Canadian neurosurgeon, scientist and professor.

Born in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, he received a B.A. in Biology from Acadia University in 1939, a M.Sc. from Dalhousie University in 1942, and an M.D., C.M. from McGill University in 1945. Attending Merton College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar he received his D. Phil in 1949.

After completing his residency, Feindel was in neurosurgical practice for two years with Wilder Penfield at the Montreal Neurological Institute. In 1955 he founded the Neurosurgical Department at the University Hospital in Saskatoon.

In 1959 Feindel re-joined the Montreal Neurological Institute where he founded the William Cone Laboratory for Neurosurgical Research and became the first William Cone Professor of Neurosurgery and then Director of the MNI from 1972 to 1984. During this tenure he led a clinical neuroscience team to acquire the first CAT and combined MRI/S units in Canada and to develop the world's first PET system utilizing a prototype Japanese "Baby" cyclotron and the MNI-designed BGO crystal PET scanner for detecting brain tumours and stroke.