A surgeon takes the stage
Esteemed cataract surgeon Bruce Lowden is also an actor and singer, taking on roles ranging from the outrageous Albin in La Cage aux Folles to the dashing Capt. von Trapp
By David Kosub
Victoria eye surgeon Dr. Bruce Lowden confesses to a very early interest in medicine, though back in 1953 his parents and friends might have been forgiven for not having guessed. Content to keep his ambitions to himself, a 10-year-old Bruce rode his bicycle to a library in a district on the other side of his Leaside neighbourhood in Toronto to get the answer to a burning medical question. How, he wondered, does the liver work?
"I went to the library in the other school district so people wouldn't know that I was trying to figure this out. It confounded me that there was this tissue inside our abdomen that had this other circulation that hooked up with our main circulation and did all this digestive stuff. So I was looking up the medical texts trying to find my way through that really early on."
At about the same time, the boy discovered another passion—the human voice. The downtown libraries he frequented for answers to anatomy questions sat adjacent to Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music, which was lodged in the old Mary Pickford House. Before long, he was taking singing lessons and performing in the Saint Simon's Church Choir, appearances that soon won him kudos as one of Toronto's premier boy sopranos. The kid from Leaside now exulted in the best of both worlds. "I was just really, really lucky," an older, still buoyant Dr. Lowden beams. "I got into medical school and I got to study singing at the same time."
Six years after his first investigation into the world of medicine, he found himself enrolled in the University of Toronto's premed program. The 16-year-old "hated" the experience.
"What I disliked about the medical school was not the medical school, not the courses. I didn't get along with my classmates. I found them so competitive and so cutthroat and ambitious. I was only 16 when I started and I just wasn't ready for that."
Dr. Lowden decided to take a degree in genetics and anthropology instead. Unfortunately, he disliked the arts program even more. After dutifully completing his Bachelor of Arts in 1964, he decided to give medical school another try. Four years later with his M.D. under his belt, he then took a completely different turn and spent three years in the Canadian air force. But medicine, particularly the much-prized ophthalmology program at the University of B.C., was not far from his mind.
"There were only two positions a year and with the star gold medalist students coming out of UBC, the guy from Ontario really didn't stand a chance, so I went back to London, Ont., and did three years of ophthalmology there. Then I got an offer from UBC to come back out west and did a fellowship year in Vancouver."
After 25 years, Dr. Bruce Lowden is regarded as one of B.C.'s most respected cataract surgeons. He's also carved out a reputation as a gifted singer and thespian. Whether it's his lead role as the outrageous Albin in La Cage Aux Folles; the stern, but mellifluous Captain von Trapp in the Sound of Music; or the icy evil-doer Judge Turpin in Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, Dr. Lowden dishes it out with enormous energy and panache.
"I love to sing. And I find it wonderfully powerful and thrilling to give the audience a charge, whether you're just singing a big high note, or saying something in the right way to make them laugh, or doing something that repulses them. Whatever it is, if you do it right, it seems to me a very powerful thing."
Dr. Lowden says stage fright is simply not part of his make-up, something he attributes in part to his training as an eye surgeon. He adds that learning anatomy and understanding surgical principles are easy compared to wielding a microscope and tiny surgical instruments aimed at the human eye. It requires a finely tuned dexterity and a tremor control Dr. Lowden maintains does not come naturally. It must be taught.
"Everyone has a tremor, you just learn to control it. And you learn to pay attention, you learn to keep your eyes on your fingertips and never take them away. You watch what you're doing and you do what you're watching."
Twenty-five years ago cataract surgeons handled large, bulky, fist-held instruments that were hard to manipulate. Eventually these shrank to tiny, finger-held instruments, manipulated through the tiniest incisions, with every movement much finer and much more controlled.
"Now we make the surgical opening through this tiny little stab and the tiny little window that's about 5 mm across in the anterior lens. We don't take out the whole lens anymore and throw it in the garbage. We retain the capsule of the lens."
His training in how to use the new technologies is ongoing. Dr. Lowden spends a portion of his year at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia updating his knowledge and skills as a surgeon. He also spends at least an hour each day on-line with other cataract surgeons swapping tips on surgical positioning and lamenting the cost of equipment—for example, the more than $50,000 price tag for a system to measure lens implants.
Still, he somehow finds time for a little musical theatre, too.
"I'll likely try out for Potiphar and Jacob in the spring production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I just can't help myself," he says. "I have a lifelong addiction to vocal music."
David Kosub is a freelance writer in Victoria.
