UW, Nation Lose a Veterinary Giant
By Doug Moe
May 15, 2001

    GEORGE CARLIN'S beloved cocker spaniel was sick with cancer, and when the
famed comedian sought out a veterinary oncologist in Santa Monica, the doctor
told him the best specialist was in Madison. 
    So in January of last year Carlin flew to Madison with his dog to see Dr.
Gregory MacEwen at the UW School of Veterinary Medicine. 
    It wasn't the vet's first brush with celebrity. Back in 1993, MacEwen's
phone at the UW rang, and a familiar voice said, "Dr. MacEwen?" 
    "Yes?" 
    "This is Henry Kissinger." Kissinger had a desperately ill black Lab and had
gotten MacEwen's name from the National Cancer Institute. That time MacEwen made
a house call. He flew to New York, and Kissinger and his wife, Nancy, picked him
up at the airport. Years later MacEwen would recall how broken up Kissinger was
over his pet's cancer. "He got down on the floor in his three-piece suit, with
his arm around the dog, and he was crying." 
    MacEwen, who died suddenly Saturday of a heart attack, was a gentle giant. A
giant in his field but a gentle man. "He was always an animal lover first and a
scientist second," David Vail was saying Monday. Vail is a veterinary oncologist
whom MacEwen recruited to the UW in 1990. They were very close - Vail served as
best man when MacEwen married his wife, Cindy. 
    "He was like a kid in some ways," Vail said. "He had this spark. Everything
excited him." Most amazing, perhaps, given his position in the ambition-rich
fields of medicine and academia, MacEwen "never had a bad word to say about
anyone," according to Vail. 
    Not so long ago I had a chance to spend a good part of a day with MacEwen.
He spoke frankly and with humor but there was no doubt he was proud of the UW
vet school, where he had worked since the doors opened in 1983. The school
itself had been controversial - former Gov. Pat Lucey had kept it from being
built and it was only after  President Jimmy Carter dispatched Lucey to Mexico
that the school won approval. It has since become one of the best in the
country. 
    MacEwen was a big part of that. Just recently MacEwen was elected president
of the Oncology Specialty of the American College of Veterinary Internal
Medicine. He received numerous grants from the National Cancer Institute for
ongoing experimental studies that may one day benefit humans as well as animals.
MacEwen put Carlin's dog on a gene therapy that cuts off the blood supply to
cancerous tumors, causing them to shrink. It produced a 50 percent regression in
a lymph node tumor in the dog's neck. 
    When Carlin left Madison, his fiancee, Sally, took MacEwen aside and said,
"They said go to Madison and we thought, aren't all the medical advances on the
East or West Coast?" 
    MacEwen had worked in New York and smiled. "I used to think that, too." 
    He'll be missed. Gregory MacEwen was 57. ...