Dickson was educated at the University of Toronto, Canada, qualifying in 1920, but practised in the United States at Utica, New York. He was a founder-member of the American Board of Surgery, which successfully brought up the qualifying requirements of the individual States to a unified high standard. He saw active service through the second world war, and on return to Utica became surgeon to St Luke's Memorial Hospital Centre, the Slocum Dickson Clinic and the Children's Hospital Home. He died at New Hartford, NY, on 16 October 1968 aged 73, from coronary artery occlusion.