Bruce Wainman
Who: Bruce Wainman Role: McMaster University anatomy professor
A new public lecture series called “Master Class” is starting at the end, in a sense, with an inaugural talk by Bruce Wainman, an anatomy professor at McMaster University.
“What Happens When You Die?” is the eye-catching title of Wainman’s lecture on Feb. 22 from 5:30-7 p.m. at the David Braley Health Sciences Centre Auditorium at 100 Main St. W.
The lecture series comes from Teaching and Learning Canada. A TLC spokesperson says the idea behind the series is for some of Canada’s brightest teachers to engage the general public on current topics of interest.
The series will raise funds to “support accessibility to higher education and help bring communities closer together.”
Registration is online. Go to www.tlc-ame.ca/master-class and click on the Eventbrite link. The fees are tax deductible.
Wainman has carved a reputation as one of the country’s top educators and is known for bringing energy and humour to the classroom.
He has won the McMaster Students Union Teaching Award numerous times, the President’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and Learning, and the prestigious 3M National Teaching Fellowship.
Wainman was featured in The Spectator’s series “Body and Soul” for his work as director of
“In conversation with…” is part of an ongoing series of profiles of interesting local people Spectator photographers and reporters have encountered over the past year.
Mac’s Education Program in Anatomy, which includes presiding over a service of gratitude each spring that thanks families whose loved ones donated their bodies to the lab.
Each of the monthly Master Class lectures will run 60 minutes, followed by a 30-minute meet-the-professor session.
The online promo for Wainman’s lecture reads: “In death the mystery deepens, touching on notions of spirituality. What was this vessel in which we travelled? How much do you know and how much do you want to know?”
Wainman spoke with The Spectator about life, death and the vessel.
Q: For many people, witnessing birth is the greatest experience there is, a beautiful miracle, but death on the other hand casts a shadow, the finality of it all. Why do you think that is? Why does death bewitch us?
A: It’s true that birth is amazing, and I’m excited by that process, but death is amazing, also. People see them as diametrically opposed; one is darkness and the other is light, but that’s not true. One is just the entrance to the world and one is the exit. The processes that brought you to life are the ones turning off as you leave this world. It can seem like an awful thing, the finality of it, but for the most part death is a slow process where all sorts of organs are struggling along; you die from relatively few things. From my perspective, it’s a fascinating process and not an awful or evil thing. It’s just the end of your physical existence here. That’s why I’m excited to talk about it.
Q: You are an expert in how the human machine works when the light is on, so to speak. So why focus your lecture on what happens when the machine dies?
A: I teach in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as pathology, so I see how people come in and how they go out. It’s true the human machine is a lot more interesting when the engine light is flickering, but when it’s not working, that’s also compelling and important. I enjoy teaching about the change that pathology brings, clinical anatomy. The value of the lecture series is interacting with people, a chance to talk to the community and help demystify a topic that is critical to people. You can hardly talk about living without talking about dying, so this is a chance to air a perspective that maybe people haven’t heard before.
Q: If you had to pick one part of the human body that excites or intrigues you more than any other, what part would it be?
A: That’s an easy one for me: the uterus is an amazing and fascinating organ. Here it is just sitting quietly doing nothing, and then it morphs into a nurturing environment for the fetus, and grows 10 to 15 times its size in nine months. The blood supply goes from quite small to 20 per cent of the entire blood supply for the mom — and not just that, but the placenta is growing in there, three kilometres of capillaries growing to help nurture the baby. And if that’s not enough, after nine months, this warm and nurturing environment expels the baby into the world, and it goes from requiring 20 per cent of the blood supply to almost none. It has to or else the mom would bleed to death. Then the uterus remodels itself and waits serenely until the next pregnancy. How can you not be fascinated by that change that goes on in one organ in nine months?
Q: When it comes to the human body, and what happens when it dies, do you subscribe to any notion of faith or belief — that is, do you believe in anything when it come to human existence, and postexistence, that occurs independent of what can be proven in science?
A: I don’t actually believe there is some sort of existence other than your contributions that live on; your legacy. The good and the bad you’ve done lives on, but you don’t. For me, when people donate their body to the Education Program in Anatomy, you see them contributing to the education of people forever. Last night, we had our interprofessional dissection group in the lab, and as you have witnessed yourself, Jon, they were fascinated: every student learned on five cadavers, five sets of kidneys, and they were amazed at how can that possibly be the same organ — some looked good, others in bad shape. So does that contribution (of those donors) live on? Absolutely. But I’m not super religious about other things.
Q: You have led an interesting life as a scientist, teacher and family man; as an athlete you have competed in marathons, and you have gone fly-fishing in South America. No doubt there is lots more you’d like to do, places to see. Do you fear it ending? Do you fear death?
A: I don’t fear death so much. When you see the difficult time some people have (dying), that can cause fear, but the one thing I fear the most is not having lived; if I didn’t contribute as much as I could, that would be a tragedy to me. My father died this year, and my good fishing friend Peter George died, so it was a tough year, really sad. But it would have been tragic if they hadn’t contributed so much to the world.
The processes that brought you to life are the ones turning off as you leave this world.