Remembering Professor Emeritus Warren H. Chapman, MD
Dear UW Urology Colleagues, Alumni and Friends,
The Department of Urology regrets the passing on March 17, 2023 of one of the most important members of its early history, Professor Emeritus Warren Howe Chapman, MD.
Dr. Chapman was an esteemed clinician, researcher and educator who worked alongside Dr. Julian Ansell and served as a bridge between Ansell and the arrival of the Department’s second Chair, Dr. Paul H. Lange.
Born in Chicago in 1925, Dr. Chapman attended the Lab School at the University of Chicago, matriculated at Toronto’s Upper Canada College, and returned to the U.S. as WWII loomed to attend Culver Military Academy in Indiana. He was accepted into the Navy’s V-12 officers training program, and spent 3 years at MIT, where he studied chemical engineering and ran track, anchoring a mile relay team that won the Penn Relays. After graduation, he served briefly in the U.S. Navy before matriculating in the medical school at the University of Chicago in 1948. Dr. Chapman completed his urology residency at the University of Chicago in 1957. Pursuing a small ad in the Journal of Urology, he and his wife Barbara found their way to Bellingham, Washington, where he began private practice and raised their 5 children, Frank, Arthur, Katharine, Marney and Phillip.
The lure of academia could not be resisted. Initially working as a clinical faculty member, he drove every Wednesday from Bellingham to Seattle to work on a rat bladder tumor model with the Hellströms, a renowned UW research couple. Appointed by Dr. Ansell to the full-time faculty in the Department in 1966, he is remembered for teaching medical students, mentoring residents, research in bladder cancer (Taranger LA, Chapman WH, Hellström I, Hellström KE. Immunological studies on urinary bladder tumors of rats and mice. Science. 1972 June 23;176(4041):1337-40.) He only began performing microsurgical vasectomy reversals after extensive in vivo animal work, and developed an early model of the ultrasound bladder scanner now used in offices and hospitals around the world.
He was loved by his patients. Professor Emeritus Dr. Michael Mayo related that he was a wonderful person and physician with widespread interests. “I particularly valued his more conservative approach to management, which I tried to emulate.” Professor Emeritus Dr. Richard Berger remembers Chapman as “a man of many talents, who could do delicate surgery and cure cancer. One of his most endearing qualities was his ability to fall asleep at almost any meeting including reliably at department meetings." And, notably, while kayaking with Berger in Magdalena Bay, Mexico.
Always the first to invite new members of the Department to dinner, he became a full Professor in 1982 and remained on the UW faculty for 27 years, working for a friend and chairman he greatly appreciated and admired, Dr. Ansell. In an unpublished History of the Department, Ansell described Chapman as one of his most important recruits. “His practice knowledge, respect among regional urologists, administration of Department laboratories and grants were essential to the success of Department.” These same skills proved invaluable at the end of Dr. Chapman’s career when he served as Acting Chair for 4 years prior to the recruitment of Dr. Lange as second Chair.
Lange found Chapman to be especially accommodating, always wise and very supportive of the Department. His work on the immunology of bladder tumors was thought to be seminal. “I always thought to have done that out of private practice was amazing.”
Dr. Chapman also had a very good idea of work/life balance. The greatest event that affected the second half of his life occurred during a family sailing trip in Canada in the summer of 1969, when they spied a for sale sign in a small bay in Lund, BC near Desolation Sound. That property became the family destination for the next half century, and Barbara and Warren retired to live at Tigh ‘na Cladoch in 1993, embraced by the community of Lund. One only needs to walk the trails he painstakingly carved, with great care for the natural environment, to know the spirit of the man. He also had a lighter side. Richard Berger observed, “He could design his own house and run a backhoe. He could plant trees and get them to grow. He could chase bears out of his garden. He could play poker. He could help raise a family (of course with considerable guidance from his wife Barbara).” He talked often of this place in BC, telling stories about his encounters with the ocean sea life of the inland passage. Walking in silence over moss covered paths, through the redwoods, sequoias, cedars and fir, meandering creeks and the still water of ponds revealed, one can see and know his essence.
In the last years, as advancing age deprived him of stamina, strength, and orientation, he was cared for with great dignity and grace at home on the Bay by his son Frank, daughter-in-law Amy, and community caregivers. Warren passed away peacefully in his beloved house in Lund, surrounded by his children, on Friday, March 17, 2023. He was preceded in death by his wife Barbara in 2019 and his daughter Marney in 2007. A Celebration of Life for Warren will be held in Seattle on April 29, 2023 at University Friends Meeting Hall at 2 p.m. The service will be followed by a reception in the Social Hall. The address is 4001 Ninth Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98105.
Dr. Warren Chapman impacted many lives as a surgeon, researcher, and teacher. The Department remembers these contributions annually with the Warren H. Chapman MD Research Award, given to a Urology Resident for outstanding research contributions. We mourn his loss.
Sincerely,
Hunter Wessells, MD, FACS
Professor and Nelson Chair
