Retirement event today for James Wisecarver, M.D., Ph.D.

Here at the med center, there are two kinds of retirements. There are those who retire-retire. And then there are those who. . .

“I’m a lingerer,” said James Wisecarver, M.D., Ph.D., with a laugh.

Dr. Wisecarver officially retires Sunday, June 30. He expects to be back at work the next day, July 1.

“I have a meeting that Monday,” he said.

Another laugh.

But he will slow down. Now he’ll be doing a lot of teaching with residents, service work with the hospital. Yes, still some time in the lab.

Today, the campus is invited to a reception to celebrate a UNMC career that goes back almost 29 years. The Department of Pathology/Microbiology is hosting the event at the Truhlsen Events Center from 2-3:30 p.m.

Dr. Wisecarver expects “perhaps a roast or two.”

And then he’ll thank everyone, “for everything they’ve done, and how much I’ve enjoyed working with everybody,” he said. “It’s been a real privilege.”

He was officially hired on faculty in fall 1990. But he was a resident before that and a medical student before that, starting in 1982.

“The thing that amazes me the most is what’s transpired, going from a kind of sleepy little place on 42nd and Dewey to the megaplex we have now.”

Through it all he was a pathologist, and “pathologists, we’re not out in front,” he said.

But he was vice chair for clinical affairs for the UNMC Department of Pathology/Microbiology and director of the Human DNA Identification Laboratory at UNMC. He also served as medical director of the clinical laboratories at UNMC’s clinical partner, Nebraska Medicine.

He is recognized as a national expert, and as he’s traveled, “You see other academic medical centers and hospitals, and it really makes you appreciate what we’ve got here,” he said.

“It really comes home — it’s the people here that makes this place so different.”

He thinks back to 1990. David Purtilo, M.D., brought him on. “The vice chair at that time was Dr. Sam Cohen,” he said. Drs. James Linder and Rod Markin were in the mix, too.

He doesn’t know who convinced whom to hire him.

“But I really appreciate the opportunity,” he said. It’s been a great ride.

Why come back the day after his retirement?

Dr. Wisecarver thought: what’s that old MacArthur quote? Oh, yes.

Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.

“I’ll just be slowly fading,” he said.

And laughed again.