Fowler shaped cancer care, future doctors

In 1961, Dr. Wesley C. “Butch” Fowler Jr. was one of 15 Carolina math majors working with the UNIVAC 1105 computer that filled Phillips Hall’s basement. “Fourteen were going into computers, and I thought, ‘There’s no future in computers,’” he wryly said.

Instead, Fowler set his sights on medical school. The computer industry’s loss has been a tremendous gain for reproductive cancer patients and the medical students and doctors who trained under Fowler.

Fowler ’61 ’66 (MD) retired in June after 52 years on UNC-Chapel Hill’s medical faculty. A professor in the UNC School of Medicine’s gynecology oncology division, he is also associate dean for alumni affairs. He founded the division and led it for 31 years and started the gynecologic oncology fellowship program that he directed for 25 years.

His 34 research grants include studies on ovarian cancer, radiation therapy for cervical cancers and links between uterine serous cancer and breast cancer. He helped identify a connection between diethylstilbestrol — a synthetic estrogen once given to pregnant women — and a rare cancer in their daughters. The Foundation for Women’s Cancer and the Society of Gynecologic Oncology recognized Fowler’s research and service.

Humble beginnings

Fowler grew up on a 100-acre tobacco farm in Dunn, North Carolina. “My high school class was less than 60 people, and not many of us went to college,” he said.

In 1957, Fowler enrolled at Carolina, playing football before becoming a team manager. After graduation, he worked as a scrub nurse at UNC Hospitals. “I fell in love with surgery. Then I got into medical school,” he said. “I don’t know how.”

Planning to return to Dunn as a general surgeon, he snagged an OB-GYN externship at Watts Hospital in Durham to gain experience with cesarean sections and hysterectomies. He was so enthralled with the work that he became chief OB-GYN resident, training under gynecologic oncology pioneers Drs. Leonard Palumbo Jr. and Hugh Shingleton.

Fowler was oncology chief at William Beaumont Hospital at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, before considering a military career and job offers from the University of Alabama and Carolina. His love for Tar Heel sports won out. “There was just something about Chapel Hill,” he said. “I didn’t want to be miles away from home basketball and football games.”

‘A real leader’

Fowler doesn’t believe in formal mentor-mentee matches. “Mentees should choose mentors because we get so many mismatches,” he said. Undergraduates, medical students and residents who find him are facing life choices. He often asks, “What are you looking for?”

Dr. John Boggess, Catherine Sou-Mei Young Distinguished Professor and gynecology oncology division chief, experienced Fowler’s mentoring as a fellow. “Dr. Fowler’s incredibly positive and gives everybody opportunities to push themselves forward to make the specialty better. He doesn’t hold people back to glorify himself. That’s a trait of a real leader,” Boggess said.

Dr. Olivia Myrick ’11, ’15 (MD), an NYU Langone Health obstetrician gynecologist, said, “He made you feel like you were the most important person in the room and that he would do everything in his power to help you succeed. That’s how I aspire to mentor others.”

Past fellows created the Fowler Society to honor him and consider him a second father. “One of my first memories of Dr. Fowler was going to his house, lighting fireworks with his kids and having dinner there with his wife. I’ve always felt like part of his family,” Boggess said.

As a mentor, Fowler tried to apply leadership traits that he studied. “Surround yourself with smarter people. Give them the reins, support them. I don’t need the spotlight. If all the people I’ve trained are doing wonderful things, I got it.”