Dr. Ken Cowan, then the director of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center (formerly the UNMC Eppley Cancer Center), shows off the Dale Chihuly pieces in the Chihuly Sanctuary on June 12, 2017. He led the cancer center for more than two decades.
JULIE ANDERSON
WorldHerald Staff Writer
Dr. Kenneth Cowan, who directed the cancer center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center for more than two decades, is being remembered as a visionary leader, a respected scientist and an empathetic physician known for giving his personal cellphone number to patients and non-patients alike.
Cowan, who stepped down last year as director of what became known as the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center after leading the organization through significant growth, died Sunday after battling cancer. He was 77.
"Dr. Cowan was unquestionably a visionary leader of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and a key visionary when it came to the development, construction and operation of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center," NU President Dr. Jeffrey Gold said. "He was not only a key respected leader as a cancer clinical scientist but highly respected by our philanthropic community both locally and across the nation."
Cowan once called leading the cancer center "the job of a lifetime." During his time there, he helped significantly raise the national profile of UNMC and clinical partner Nebraska Medicine in cancer care and research.
A New York City native, Cowan came to Omaha from the National Cancer Institute in Maryland. He joined UNMC in 1999 as the director of what was then called the Eppley Cancer Center and Eppley Institute for Cancer Research.
As the center expanded, he realized UNMC needed a new cancer center and proposed a new facility to then-Chancellor Dr. Harold Maurer. When it opened in 2017, the $323 million Buffett Cancer Center, a joint venture between UNMC and Nebraska Medicine, ranked as the largest-ever construction project for the University of Nebraska and the largest public-private partnership in the state's history. The cancer center changed its name to align with that of the new facility.
At the National Cancer Institute, Cowan had worked in a building that combined patient beds and research laboratories. He said in a 2018 interview that the idea for integrating cancer care and cancer research under one roof at the Buffett Cancer Center was based on his experiences there. The aim was to facilitate collaboration among researchers and clinicians and to make sure discoveries could move quickly from the laboratory to the bedside and make care and treatment more accessible for patients.
It was also at the Maryland institute where Cowan met Dr. Alison Freifeld, his wife of 42 years. Freifeld is a professor emeritus in UNMC's infectious diseases division.
"He was present and patient and kind and thoughtful in his interactions with everybody," she said. "While he was a leader, he wasn't ... a person who demanded that his directives be followed. He cared about how each person working for him and with him viewed things. It was important to him to have dialogue, for people to be able to express themselves ... He was just a sweet man with a great vision and a lot of heart."
Gold, who arrived at UNMC in 2014, said he got to work closely with Cowan from the time construction was beginning on the Buffett center and its programming was in early stages.
"We went on together under Ken's leadership to turn it into one of the premier cancer centers in the country," he said. The Buffett Cancer Center currently is a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, a distinction UNMC has held since 1984.
Gold said Cowan also was instrumentally involved with the Cattlemen's Ball, an annual cancer awareness and fundraising event. The ball, Gold said, brings "rural and urban communities together around research to detect, treat and cure cancer in a state where cancer is the leading cause of death."
Dr. H. Dele Davies, UNMC's interim chancellor, said Cowan was gentle but thoughtful, someone who led by example and had a clear vision of what he wanted.
Bringing together the cancer center required a lot of leadership and compromise. "He never got flustered," Davies said. "It was the force of his personality that allowed that to evolve."
Dr. Joann Sweasy, who succeeded Cowan as cancer center director last year, said she was asked during her first interview whether she had any concerns about the position. "I said, 'My top concern was trying to fill the boots of Dr. Cowan, because of the remarkable job he had done.'"
She said she felt she could discuss anything with him and that he would provide good advice.
"This cancer center wouldn't be able to continue to move forward and expand without everything he did," she said.
Cowan continued to help patients, including those he didn't know, even during his illness. Davies, who also gives out his cellphone number, said he doesn't know how many times he passed along questions or referral requests to Cowan. "He would always just respond, 'Done,'" Davies said.
Freifeld said he was just that kind of person and doctor.
"He was just amazing," she said. "I was honored to share a life with him."
In addition to Freifeld, Cowan is survived by daughters Eliza, a nurse in Chicago, and Sara, chair of the performing arts department at Omaha Central High School, and her husband, Brian Fahey, as well as grandchildren Miriam and Clara Fahey. A celebration of life will be held on UNMC's campus at a later time.
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