#15267, Michael (Mike) PAWSON

Obituary, The Times.

Medic who set up a clinic within the NHS for women with fertility problems

Mike Pawson believed that giving birth was the best thing a human being could do. Being an obstetrician, he explained to his daughter Lara, was the closest he could get to the process. His deep interest in the psychosomatic aspects of infertility and mental health in pregnancy established his international reputation as one of medicine’s quiet revolutionaries.

Where other reformers might scream and shout to effect change, Pawson was a gentle giant empowered by the deep conviction he was right — that women had been undermined by generations of obstetricians and gynaecologists. He would turn on critics with little more than an engaging, disarming smile, determined to evade conflict. His charm and genuine concern for people also gave him an impeccable bedside manner. His mentor was the formidable Professor Norman Morris, of Charing Cross Hospital, London, who in the 1960s accused his fellow obstetricians (mostly men) of neglecting the feelings of new mothers and pregnant women. Morris’s crusading helped to make ante-natal classes routine and encouraged husbands to join their partners in the labour room.

But there was a highly personal driving force behind Pawson’s ideology. He explained it all in a remarkably frank revelation in a book in which fellow contributors included Hilary Mantel, author of the Wolf Hall trilogy and one of his many celebrity patients; and Germaine Greer, author of The Female Eunuch. Writing in Inconceivable Conceptions: Psychological Aspects of Infertility and Reproductive Technology, Pawson said: “What is it that makes a gynaecologist take up such a speciality and reflect on mortality and procreation? I am conscious that my motivation to do medicine and then to specialise in women’s health and wellbeing, initially in pregnancy and childbirth, was the positive and creative nature of producing a healthy baby.

“Probably a deeper and more complex reason was associated with the fact that I had no communication of any sort with my father from the age of six. This made me interested in parenting and, having seen, understood and taken part in the care of pregnant women, I became aware of the pain of those who were unable to conceive. I became progressively more interested in infertility and started a clinic within the NHS in 1970 dedicated to those with fertility problems.”

The Charing Cross clinic is believed to have been the first in the UK dedicated exclusively to infertility problems. One in six people were estimated to be infertile — with many enduring a traumatic, life-long sense of loss for what might have been. Pawson’s pioneering clinic was a catalyst in what became an explosion in infertility management, including in vitrofertilisation and egg and embryo donation. But his research underlined his dedication to the study of psychosomatic and psychological illness. Unusually, if not uniquely, for an obstetrician/gynaecologist, he considered undergoing psychoanalysis. His papers had controversial titles such as “What has happened to Hippocrates?” and “The infertile patient — does she always want a baby?”

Pawson became the first clinical director of the Assisted Conception Unit at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, and then its clinical director of gynaecological services. By this time he and his wife Carolyn Handasyde, whom he married in 1961, had three children. Lara is a former BBC journalist and author; Robert (“Bobbie”), a judge and Alexandra (“Xandra”), a counsellor. His wife, children and six grandchildren survive him. He was, said Lara, an affectionate and attentive father who loved taking the kids on treats and outings and who later encouraged them to challenge his politics and philosophy. Lara partly attributed her father’s illustrious career to the indefatigable support of her mother — a feature evident in many successful medical careers.

Pawson was the only child of Edward Basil “Jack” Pawson, a Staffordshire GP, and Mary Bertha Batson “Betty” Pawson (née Stephens). Born in Moseley, Birmingham, in 1937, his childhood passions included Wolverhampton Wanderers, cricket and reading. He later became a collector of first editions and cherished an unfulfilled ambition to run a bookshop. Educated at Marlborough College, he wanted to follow his father into medicine, but a teacher told him that he would “never make a scientist”. Defying the warning, he switched to medicine after obtaining a place to study English at Jesus College, Cambridge.

Extremely popular with colleagues, Pawson was the “best-ever” mentor, according to Roger Marwood, a now retired obstetrician/gynaecologist at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Pawson advised him about a wide range of issues, from dealing with junior colleagues and NHS managers to juggling private and professional life, an occupational hazard in medicine.

Pawson’s engaging personality was well suited to the diplomatic demands of committee work. He chaired the British Society of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynaecology in the 1990s and became UK representative on the International Executive Committee of the International Society of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynaecology. He also loved teaching and was an examiner for bodies such as the University of London, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Central Midwives Board.

But he was not flawless. In later life he enjoyed watching TV sport and, in a contradiction that bemused his family, seemed to lose sight of the feminist values that had defined his career. He hated listening to women sports commentators.

Michael Edward Pawson, doctor, was born on June 10, 1937. He died from frailty of old age and heart disease on November 9 2024, aged 87