A life dedicated to life itself
Dr. Bernard Ludwig brought 20,000 babies into the world
If you were born in Toronto, there is a good chance you’ve met Dr. Bernard Ludwig — although you might have been too young to remember. Ludwig delivered more than 20,000 babies in Toronto, a nearly permanent on-call obstetrician who never took vacations and even went 10 years without visiting his Peterborough-area cottage.
He enjoyed just over four years of retirement before passing away peacefullytwo weeks ago, on Sept. 16, 2012. He was 90.
A 2008 profile of Ludwig in the Star described him as Toronto’s most prolific obstetrician-gynecologist. He was forced to quit the profession he devoted his life to at 86 because of a broken hip.
Born in Toronto on March 31, 1922, Ludwig was brought up in a modest home with his close sister, Beverley Borins, just 15 months his junior.
He graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1945. His specialty was a matter of employment: the only residency that was available to him at the time was in obstetrics at Washington’s American University.
After further graduate work in Miami, he called in a favour from a Washington friend for a job back home. That landed him privileges at six Toronto hospitals in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Ludwig began his obstetrical practice at Mount Sinai Hospital in1950, then in a small house on Yorkville Ave.
“There were two people delivering at once sometimes,” Ludwig said in a 2008 interview, describing the single-room delivery area.
“Everybody yelling at the same time. Then they’d have to move them somewhere in the hall. It was a mess.”
Ludwig — affectionately called “Bernie Baby” by friends and colleagues — daily donned white sneakers and walked more than six kilometres to work. His son in-law, Dr. Mark Gwartz, said in his eulogy that a “Ludwig Day” started with 45 minutes of skipping rope in the basement at 5 a.m. and wouldn’t end until patient calls were finished at 10 or 11 p.m. Unless, of course, there was a patient in or going into labour. On those nights, he slept in the hospital.
Gwartz said one of Ludwig’s patients, a well-known philanthropist, once said: “Bernie Ludwig dedicated his entire life to life itself.”
Ludwig and his wife, Margaret, had four children and 13 grandchildren. Margaret, an accomplished artist, was patient with Ludwig despite his always being on call for a delivery.
Borins said Ludwig had left countless functions and weddings to deliver babies, and would even let the theatre know which seat he was in should a call come in.
Margaret wasn’t the only one who waited for the kind and caring Ludwig.
A pair of fellowships were created in Ludwig’s honour: One at the University of Toronto and Mount Sinai Hospital to continue projects in specialized obstetrical care and high-risk pregnancies, and another at the Herzog Hospital in Israel to train immigrant Ethiopian nurses.