Christopher Martin Bernards

An amazing teacher who will live on in those he taught. I am so lucky to have known him. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.

A kind and thoughtful man with one of the finest minds ever. Our heartfelt condolences to his family.

Brilliant. One of the reasons to be at Virginia Mason.

Compassionate. Even after his diagnosis he still brought Thanksgiving lunch for the staff as is his tradition.

He will be sorely missed. Thank you for the good memories.

Chris had rare brilliance and perspective. He told me he was raised to think like a Jesuit. The ultimate goal was not merely to develop rhetorical, writing and thinking skills, but to help students understand and articulate the wisdom, knowledge, and habits benefiting their souls and the souls of others. His impact is far-reaching. I always received new light from Chris. My favorite aphorism from Chris: “Don’t believe everything you think!”

We can understand the loss faced by YOU and indeed it is hard for us to console you.But this is the time when in death,we realize the significance of LIFE and in LOSS we realize the importance of our valuable Chris Bernards.Let us go on together in prayers and thoughts the marvelous LIFE he shared with us.Gather courage and pray for his departed soul.Our sympathies are with you.

I will offer this Saturday’s Mass, and many others, for Chris and for his family. Flights of angels see him to his rest…..

A brilliant, charming, funny and compassionate man. I owe much to him in that I never get through a lecture on opioid pharmacology without reference to his work. It was always a joy to be around him when he was teaching in the OR – he had great style. Anyone who ever knew him in any capacity will feel his absence from this life.

When my wife, Miriam, and I first learned of Chris’ terminal illness I can only say that we shocked. Now that he is gone, the sadness we are experiencing is almost overwhelming. I have known Chris for most of my professional career (and I knew his father as well). Most recently, it was while Chris was a member of the faculty at UW and based at Harborview. What a pleasure to work with someone so intellectually talented, clinically skilled, and a model teacher. Always asking questions, always challenging “well known facts”. I remained close to Chris when he moved to VM (our loss, their gain) not only by occasional social and professional encounters, but also through his highly valuable contributions (chapters) for our textbook, Clinical Anesthesia.

And, how fortunate Chris was to have found a friend, soul-mate, and wife in Elizabeth. Elizabeth, you are one very special person. Once again, your love and caring concerns for the welfare of others, is beyond anyone’s expectations.

Miriam and I have a conflict on Saturday and will have to miss Chris’ funeral. However, we will definitely have both Chris and Elizabeth in our thoughts that day. Those thoughts will include feelings of great love for the two of you, and for you Elizabeth, prayers for rapid healing from the emotional injuries of the past months.

Bruce (and Miriam) .

Chris was brilliant and generous guy with a rapier wit. He was certainly never afraid to speak his mind, a quality that I greatly admired. He expected a lot of people, but he gave an enormous amount back in return. We have lost a great friend and colleague.

I worked with Chris many times in the operating room and appreciated his competence, intellect and caring. I would often hear him beyond the ether screen, teaching the anesthesia residents, going over journal articles, and asking questions to stimulate thought.

My heart goes out to Chris’s family.

From strength to strength…

Debbie Wechter

Elizabeth, my heart was heavy on hearing the news of Chris’s death. Within minutes a bald eagle passed by my living room window, of special meaning to me. Please know you and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.

The obituary so nicely captures the essence of the Chris I knew over the years, from the time I started on the Pain Relief Service here at Harborview, many years ago now. I am so grateful to have had the honor to have experienced and benefitted from his graciousness, dry wit, brilliant mind and principles. Watching you together as your romance evolved was a thing of beauty. I will continue to be enriched as I reflect on these elements over the course of my remaining life.

Way too early.

Though I didn’t have a chance to work with Chris closely – from what I have seen, here was a man who was rigorous in his scientific approach, yet unorthodox in the way he formulated questions and questioned apparent and entrenched “truths”. Most of all: he had a common sense and was able to communicate clearly and in succinct way.

I’ll miss his Grand Rounds presentations.

Elizabeth – condolences to you and your Family.

Amazing creativity, tireless work ethic, and a keen attention to detail – attributes that are rarely found in combination. Chris, you will be dearly missed. I am honored to have you as a colleague and friend. See ya on the other side.

K032

I have never met Dr. Bernards personally but it seems i have known him for so long thru Ruby Barcega. Dr. Chris is truly a Christian in the fullest and truest sense of the word. He loved Christ because he loved and cared for Christ’s poorest of the poor. He was a staunch supporter of NEI and we’ll surely miss his concern for how our mission is going along, often asking about Sr. Cora Pacheco, the Franciscan Missionary of Mary(FMM) who established viable programs for the poor (Ref: http://www.neweastinc.com) . Incidentally, Sr. Cora also passed away last August. So, as Ruby said, maybe both of them are looking down on us, laughing at us, praying for us as we are praying for both of them. The FMM will offer mass and special prayers for you, Dr. Chris…for you and your loved ones. We’ll surely miss you! Our prayers and sympathy for people dear to your heart. God bless!

My best regards to the Bernard and Visco family, Chris and family will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Elizabeth,

Chris was an inspirational teacher, critical thinker, and astute clinician. I will never forget his generosity with his time giving me advice on how to be a good teacher, how to do good science and how to take good take care of patients and also for looking out for me when I was a junior faculty. We have been enriched from him having been in our lives.

My family and I are so sorry for your loss; our deepest condolences.

Monica

We worked together in the late 80’s at Virginia Mason and Dr. Chris was a pleasure to work with and always respectful of an individual ‘s knowledge base which was usually an notch lower than his—a point that meant something to an old CRNA.. His premature departure from this life is a great loss because he had much more to offer. My prayers are with the family.

Chris was a wonderful colleague and caring friend. His tireless energy, witty humor, insatiable quest for knowledge, and our lively conversations about biking will be deeply missed. My heartfelt sympathy goes out to Elizabeth and the Bernards family. It was truly an honor and pleasure to know and work with Chris.

My condolences to the Bernard and Visco family. My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

I was a resident mate at Walter Reed with Chris’s father, Walt. I still count Walt as one of my best buddies, even though he, (like Chris!!!!) constantly challenged me to be as smart as him! That was impossible, and Chris followed up by doing the same when we were fellow physicians at Virginia Mason 50 years later. How could this little imp, (whom I first knew when he was about 22 inches long) be so knowledgeable?? A true scholar who wasted very few minutes of this gift called LIFE. He truly made the most of it! I’ll always appreciate his example!

Chris deserves all of the accolades; they have been recounted well by others. For me what really made him special was his humanity. He lived; he loved; he cared. He could not stop asking questions, not in his professional life nor as a member of society and he was driven to search for answers while guarding against “believing everything he thought”. He taught all of us what a life well lived can be. I will miss him and celebrate the time I had to know him.

Chris deserves all of the accolades; they have been recounted well by others. For me what really made him special was his humanity. He lived; he loved; he cared. He could not stop asking questions, not in his professional life nor as a member of society and he was driven to search for answers while guarding against “believing everything he thought”. He taught all of us what a life well lived can be. I will miss him and celebrate the time I had to know him.

Chris deserves all of the accolades; they have been recounted well by others. For me what really made him special was his humanity. He lived; he loved; he cared. He could not stop asking questions, not in his professional life nor as a member of society and he was driven to search for answers while guarding against “believing everything he thought”. He taught all of us what a life well lived can be. I will miss him and celebrate the time I had to know him.

Chris was a great attending anesthesiologist who taught many of us at UW and VM for years. He won many resident teaching awards and was a favorite instructor year after year. Chris was appropriately tough on the younger residents, but committed to teaching them both clinical anesthesia and real science.

He is greatly missed in the anesthesiology community, but his contribution to the science of the field and the development of generations of doctors will live forever.

Thanks, Chris.

What a pleasure to be able to call Chris a friend. He was an inspiration in my clinical, research and personal life. He defined “research” for me in that he was constantly picking a dogma in clinical practice and knocking the stuffing out of it with a few simple experiments that no one else had bothered to do. He was a role model for my clinical career as well I guess since he was my attending on my first epidural as an R2 at Harborview (just after he joined the faculty there) – calmly and patiently teaching me for what I remember was a VERY long time (it was probably longer). It was so fun to just sit and chat with Chris. No matter how bad the Mariners played on the field in front of us for instance we could talk about life and work and family. He loved his kids and you Elizabeth. I will certainly miss Chris terribly though I’m glad I will never forget him.