Scholarships keep spirit of a late cardiac-anesthetist alive

“We called him Charlie.” Those four words alone, uttered by a longtime colleague, speak volumes about the widespread feelings of loss and affection for the late cardiac anesthetist Dr. Charles MacAdams, who died in the spring of 2016.

“I met Charlie 30 years ago when he drove this awful little car from Calgary to Saskatchewan to do a locum,” says Dr. Andrew Maitland, a cardiac surgeon, who would soon join MacAdams at the Foothills Medical Centre cardiovascular unit. “He was intense, he was meticulous, he was a keen teacher and he always wanted to give back,” Maitland says. “When he died, my colleagues and I wanted to do something that would best honour his memory.”

There’s no singular path to marking the life of an individual whose passion and energy touched the lives of so many, and in such varied ways. MacAdams made enormous contributions to the field of anesthesiology as a highly regarded clinician and prize-winning educator in UCalgary’s Department of Anesthesia at the Cumming School of Medicine. He also served as a medical missionary, donating time and money to support anesthesia training in under-serviced countries, including his beloved Nepal.

It was there, while on one of his trips that combined medical education with mountaineering, that MacAdams died on May 11, 2016, a day after exuberantly ascending 7,000 metres to the top of Mt. Everest’s North Col. “Charlie was a fit guy and extremely intense,” says Maitland. “He would cycle in to work in a blizzard, and he did a lot of climbing with others on our team.” That night in the Himalayas, MacAdams went to bed in his tent at base camp and peacefully passed away in his sleep.

Certainly, MacAdams, who was only 62, had more to give. As part of UCalgary’s first Giving Day in 2017, Maitland and two dozen colleagues found a way to reignite his bright spark by creating a student award in his name, joining a growing number of faculty and staff who support the Energize campaign, and leveraging the impact of Giving Day when UCalgary would match their gifts.

“Each one of us could give $1,000, and the university matched each of those gifts on Giving Day,” says Maitland. “That meant we were able to create scholarships for two University of Calgary medical students to do an elective in cardiology.

“It’s expensive for students to do electives — these awards will allow students to see what cardiology is like at an early stage. I admit, it’s a little selfish because it means we can get really good people to come into our residency program, and we then train the best new cardiac surgeons.”

MacAdams would no doubt approve. Still, his old friend thinks he’d find the scholarship’s name — the Dr. Charles MacAdams Medical Elective Awards — a little awkward.

“Charlie might guffaw at that,” says Maitland. “He wasn’t the sort of person to put himself in the limelight — he would rise to the top, not put himself at the top. In that respect, he might not like it.” But, he adds with a grin, “tough.”