About Molly Towell

The following article, published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada in 2001, was written by Dr. Fred Bryans—Molly’s colleague and dear friend. As the chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Bryans recruited Dr. Towell to Vancouver. She subsequently moved to McMaster University in 1979.

Bryans, Fred E. (2001). Dr. Molly Towell and Perinatal Research in Canada. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada, 23 (7), 610-12. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/S0849-5831(16)31321-0

During 1956 and early 1957, Molly was Ship’s Surgeon on the Columbia Coast mission boat operated by the Anglican Church, serving approximately 3500 people in widely scattered fishing and logging camps, fish canneries, lighthouses, and Native villages along the British Columbia coast. Her detailed diary, now housed in the B.C. Archives in Victoria, captures a glimpse of the lives of the isolated workers and their families, to whom she became a counsellor and friend. It is clear that many times she disregarded personal safety in reaching the sick or injured, transferring from the Columbia to small boats and canoes in inclement weather or darkness. Her cheery and helpful manner must have made her a welcome visitor to the well and to sick alike. She readily identified with the people, their ways and their culture. In the year 1956 when she was aboard, the Columbia cruised 12,000 miles making 140 points-of-call in all seasons and all weathers, during which visits she treated 1000 patients.

Towell returned to Great Britain in 1957 to pursue post-graduate training in obstetrics and gynaecology, spending the next three years in training posts in Edinburgh hospitals. In 1961 she returned to Canada, completing her final year of residency at the Vancouver General Hospital. She entered clinical practice in Vancouver in 1962, but after one year shifted to an academic and research career. As a Queen Elizabeth II Canadian Research Fellow, she examined thermoregulation in the fetus and newborn with Karlis Adamsons at Columbia University until 1965. She subsequently returned to Vancouver to join the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology as an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia.

In 1967, She become a Medical Research Council Scholar and began what was to be a career-long interest in the cardiovascular and respiratory effects of intrauterine hypoxia. She developed a model for studying the fetal lamb and fetal goat by implanting catheters and electrodes at surgery, which then permitted observations to be made on the undisturbed fetus in utero over an extended number of days or weeks. To more directly study fetal asphyxia, she developed a compression device which could be attached to the umbilical cord at operation and subsequently inflated to allow study of the cardiovascular, respiratory and acid base response to varying degrees of cord compression. In collaboration with Sam Bessman in Los Angeles, she demonstrated the practical application of techniques for measuring fetal oxygen levels. By the implantation of galvanic oxygen electrodes, she was able to obtain the first measurements of tissue oxygen concentrations in the fetal lamb during parturition. Pursuit of the metabolic significance of changes in oxygen tension in the antepartum and intrapartum periods remained a major focus of her research. She was a highly regarded early member of an elite, international group of workers in this specialized field of research.

Her work has been published in 70 papers and abstracts in which she was either author or co-author, including those on the metabolic significance of changes in oxygen tension (1-7), thermoregulation (8), biochemical monitoring of the fetus (9), catecholamine depletion (10), cortisol as inducing premature labour (11), and the effect of labour on uterine blood flow (12), and in eight book chapters, including three in James Goodwin’s classic perinatal medicine text (13).

In addition to her role as a research scientist, she was a conscientious and caring obstetrician and teacher. In the mid ’60s and early ’70s, concepts and procedures that are now firmly established in practice were new and unproven and represented departures from established obstetrical thinking. At that time, few centres in Canada were actively exploring and evaluating the clinical application of the new understanding of the fetal environment.

In 1979, she moved to McMaster University, where she worked until her death from breast cancer in 1989, at the age of 60. Her main time commitment there was to her research in fetal oxygenation using animal models. However, she remained involved in the care of high-risk pregnancies and served as coordinator of the Regional Perinatal Program and head of the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology from 1981 to 1986. As a tutor and supervisor to undergraduate and graduate students and residents, she continued her interest and participation in teaching. She was a willing and popular teacher to all levels of maternity caregivers, extending her influence beyond the major teaching hospitals. Although she was always clear and articulate as a teacher, it was less of what she said than the conviction of her thoughts and the way she lived them that left a lasting impression with her co-workers and students.

In her final illness, she endowed the Molly Towell Perinatal Research Foundation, which continues to foster and support original research in fetal and neonatal medicine. It was her wish that young investigators and those with original and untried ideas be encouraged. As of 1999, the Foundation has supported 27 research grants in six Canadian universities and one in the United States. MTPRF has also helped to fund the annual meeting of the Western Perinatal Research Conference from its inception in 1994.

Yet it is Molly Towell the person that most remember. Molly was greatly admired by the physicians, nurses, scientists, and technicians with whom she worked and whose efforts she warmly encouraged. She judged herself and her co-workers against a very high standard, in a way that elevated the expectations and performance of those around her. As her department head at the University of British Columbia, I could be visited by Molly in a rage about one of my sins of commission or omission, and the next day she would be back with a story or joke accompanied by her hearty laugh. Her uncompromising work schedule had its personal cost, but most of the time she was able to keep in the air the three academic balls of clinical care, teaching and research. She brought relaxation and balance to her busy life by pursuing a wide range of interests that included music, gardening, and cooking. In all her relationships, she engendered a sense of loyalty that was almost unique, and that in itself tells us a great deal about her.

The legacy of this remarkable person who contributed so much during her lifetime continues to be extended through the work of the Foundation she created.

REFERENCES

Reflections from Professor Dan Rurak