Patrick Christopher Steptoe

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

FRS (9 June 1913 – 21 March 1988) was an English obstetrician and

gynaecologist Gynaecology or gynecology (see spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, forming the combined area ...

and a pioneer of fertility treatment. Steptoe was responsible with biologist and physiologist Robert Edwards and the nurse Jean Purdy for developing in vitro fertilisation. Louise Joy Brown, the first

test-tube baby In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating an individual's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) fr ...

, was born on 25 July 1978. Edwards was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the development of in vitro fertilisation; Steptoe and Purdy were not eligible for consideration because the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.

Education

Born in Oxford, Steptoe was educated at The Grammar School,

Witney Witney is a market town on the River Windrush in West Oxfordshire in the county of Oxfordshire, England. It is west of Oxford. The place-name "Witney" is derived from the Old English for "Witta's island". The earliest known record of it is a ...

(since 1968 the comprehensive

Henry Box School The Henry Box School is a secondary school with academy status located in Witney in Oxfordshire, England. The school has a catchment area of the town of Witney and many surrounding villages such as Ducklington and Aston. It has approximately 1 ...

) in Oxfordshire. He went to King's College London and graduated from St George's Hospital Medical School, London in 1939. He served in the Royal Navy from 1939–1946 and attained the rank of Lieutenant Commander. From 1947 to 1949 he was chief assistant in obstetrics and gynaecology at St. George's Hospital, then senior registrar at the

Whittington Hospital Whittington Hospital is a district general and teaching hospital of UCL Medical School and Middlesex University School of Health and Social Sciences. Located in Upper Holloway, it is managed by Whittington Health NHS Trust, operating as Whitt ...

(formerly known as Highgate Hospital) and obtained his FRCS(Ed) in 1950. His chief at Highgate, Kathleen Harding, was credited by Steptoe as teaching him a great deal about the management of infertility.

Laparoscopy pioneer

After the Second World War, he studied obstetrics and, in 1951 he started to work at the Oldham & District General Hospital. From

Raoul Palmer Raoul Albert Charles Palmer FRCOG (29 August 1904, Paris – 5 July 1985), known as A.C. Palmer, was a French gynecologist and pioneer in gynecologic laparoscopy. Palmer was born in Paris. His parents, Fritjof Palmer and Signe, née Garling, were ...

he learned the technique of laparoscopy and promoted its usefulness. In 1967 he published ''Laparoscopy in Gynaecology''. Subsequently, Robert Edwards, a physiologist from the University of Cambridge, contacted him and got him interested to collaborate in the development of ''in vitro'' fertilization.

Work with Edwards

Steptoe became the Director of the Centre for Human Reproduction, Oldham, in 1969. Using laparoscopy, he collected the

ova , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA s ...

from volunteering infertile women who saw his place as their last hope to achieve a pregnancy. Edwards and Jean Purdy provided the laboratory expertise. During this time they had to endure criticism and hostility to their work. Finally, in 1978, the birth of Louise Brown changed everything. Although he encountered further criticism, other clinics were able to follow the lead and patients responded. To accommodate the increased patient number and train specialists, he, Purdy, and Edwards founded the Bourn Hall Clinic,

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to th ...

in 1980 of which Steptoe was a Medical Director until his death.

Awards and honours

In 1979, Steptoe received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...

. In 1987, he was made Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE), just a week after the 1,000th test-tube baby, conceived with his help, was born. Steptoe was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1987 His nomination reads: A plaque was unveiled at the Bourn Hall Clinic in July 2013 by

Louise Brown Louise Joy Brown (born 25 July 1978) is an English woman who was the first human to have been born after conception by ''in vitro'' fertilisation experiment (IVF). Her birth, following a procedure pioneered in Britain, has been lauded among "t ...

and Alastair MacDonald – the world's first IVF baby boy – commemorating Steptoe and Edwards. Steptoe is also commemorated with a plaque at the Maternity Ward at the Royal Oldham Hospital, and at 52 West End, Witney. Steptoe is buried in Bourn, St Helena and St Mary Churchyard.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Steptoe, Patrick Christopher 1913 births 1988 deaths Alumni of King's College London Alumni of St George's, University of London 20th-century English medical doctors British gynaecologists In vitro fertilisation Fellows of the Royal Society Commanders of the Order of the British Empire People from Witney Royal Navy officers Royal Navy officers of World War II Military personnel from Oxfordshire Burials in Cambridgeshire