Professor Robert Edwards at NID 2008

He told me about his career. One of the many things he told me one that struck me most was his separation of the surgical lists so that women who were having terminations were not being seen on the same day as those who were undergoing surgical investigation for infertility. This is such an obvious thing to do but so often doesn’t happen and causes unnecessary heartache to both parties.

It is implementing measures like these which makes such a difference to the patient experience. It was as a result of this meeting that I decided to nominate him for your clinician award. I contacted one of his patients and she was so enthusiastic to support him she solicited all the testimonials below from his staff and colleagues. The patient wishes to remain anonymous and so I have sent this in on her behalf.
Sarah Norcross, director Progress Educational Trust

I would like to very strongly support your nomination of John Parsons for the above award. I have worked with John since 1993 firstly as a colleague when I was Director of Midwifery and Gynaecology Nursing at Kings and then as his manager when I became General Manager Women and Children’s Services. When John became Clinical Director Women’s and Children’s services we worked as fellow managers. I am also a member of the Board of the British pregnancy Advisory Service on which John sits. John is a remarkably hard working clinician. He has given far more to the service than his basic job plan requires. He is the lead for our Assisted Conception Service (ACU) and our Termination of Pregnancy Service (TOPs) (the busiest in London) but has also carried the full responsibilities of any obstetrician/gynaecologist including on call commitments. He has always engaged in the development of services and in this respect is a delight to work with. He starts from the fundamental principle that the service delivered has to meet the needs of women and after that he is completely open minded about how services should be delivered. He is enthusiastic about change which he sees as benefiting women and has driven up standards across the entire service through his enquiring and innovative approach. John is an excellent colleague. He is supportive of his colleagues and of the multidisciplinary team in each department. He works particularly well with nursing staff and has always been supportive of them extending their roles particularly in the ACU and the TOPs services. I always think that the very fact that John works so successfully in two very different services highlights that for him Women’s needs come first.
I am well aware that despite the enormous contribution John makes at Kings he also works hard outside of the organization promoting the rights of women to make choices about their own fertility. John is held with great respect on the BPAS Board and he is a regular spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists on fertility issues.

Prof Cathy Warwick
General Manager Women's and Children's Services
Kings College Hospital Foundation Trust
Denmark Hill
London
SE5 9RS
Email: cathy.warwick@kch.nhs.uk

I consider John Parsons to be one of the most inspirational consultants I have worked with in my nursing career in gynaecology. From what I have observed over the last 12 years or so of working with John is that he is truly dedicated and committed to all of his areas of work including in/fertility. Not only does he continue to contribute hugely on a practical basis, maintaining and developing clinical skills but he is exceptionally motivated and determined to develop services. I feel that John’s most unique and admirable qualities are his enthusiasm, his ideas and the value he places in the ideas of those he works with and the choices that women have and we provide for them. This would be a most well deserved award and just recognition for an exceptional man.

Debbie Hutchinson

I would like to support John Parson's nomination as Clinician of the Year award to be announced at the National Fertility Day. John has been a consultant colleague of mine at King's College Hospital for many years. I am a paediatrician and Director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and am extremely appreciative of the outstanding support he gives women undergoing assisted conception.

Yours sincerely
Professor Anne Greenough
Head, King's College London School of Medicine Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Centre supported by WellChild 4th Floor Golden Jubilee Wing King’s College Hospital Denmark Hill LONDON, SE5 9RS
Email: anne.greenough@kcl.ac.uk

I would like to support John Parsons' nomination. I am a fellow Gynaecologist at King's. He has taught me throughout my career as I grew from a medical student into a Consultant, and I have now known him for 18 years. He is the most principled clinician I have ever crossed paths with and always puts his patients first (his unit is run on a non profit making basis). He was a pioneer of outpatient assisted conception and nurse lead clinics. He must have helped thousands of couples over the years and will shortly be passing his baton to someone new when he retires in less than two years. I am sure this award would mean an enormous amount to him at this point, primarily because it is awarded by patients as a form of thanks and in recognition of a caring doctor.

Yours sincerely
Jackie Ross

I haven't thought this through in depth but I can give you a list of words that sum up my boss for me.
• Inspirational
• Humble
• Fair
• Honest
• Fantastic role model
• Principled
• Leader in his field
• Has a deep love for his work
• Vocal
• Hormonal
• The place would never be the same without him

Kind Regards,
Michele Harris
Fertility Specialist Nurse
Assisted Conception Unit

John joined the bpas (British Pregnancy Advisory Service) board of trustees in 2005 and is an active member of our clinical governance committee. Within the abortion ‘field’ John is regarded as one of the most influential players. He is one of the few doctors to carry out surgical procedures to the legal time limit and is happy to discuss this on public platforms. He has a reputation for being collaborative with colleagues inside both the NHS and independent sector and is particularly generous with regard to training and developing more junior colleagues He is possibly the most genuinely compassionate and non-judgemental doctor I have ever met. I once discussed with him the logistics of running the infertility and the abortion services at Kings and he explained that he thought it was a natural partnership – they both served to place women in control of their fertility.

Ann Furedi
Chief Executive
BPAS

Anybody who has been through wanting a child and being unable to have one know how difficult it is to put this into words, and what bag of mixed feelings this stirs up, from the feeling that you have so much to give and nobody to give it to, to how difficult it becomes to simply walk past any glowing bump and smiling pram, how difficult it is to share the joy of your friends who have children when part of you screams “why not me?” and part of you is horrified of how you are turning in a pathetic version of Cruella deVil, only more bitter and twisted. On one hand we try and be rationale, think that there are already far too many people on the planet, that if Nature or God had meant for us to have children we would have by now, and on the other hand everybody knows somebody who had children unexpectedly in ripe old age, be it in personal acquaintances, folk lore, religion (Hannah in Samuel 1, Elizabeth in Luke 1…). The biological clock is no longer just ticking but screeching with alarm, and we still try and cling to the hope that this is still possible naturally, that Mr. Right or even Mr. Just Goodenough is right behind the corner and we are not that old after all…

It was with all of this racing through my mind (and more!) that I approached the Assisted Conception Unit at Kings about one and a half years ago. I had toyed with the idea of assisted fertility for quite some time, checked out open evenings in other Units, found a sperm donor and then we both agreed it wasn’t such a good idea… this time I took the plunge.
I had an appointment with John Parsons pretty soon and before I knew I found myself asking and answering all sorts of questions, including aspects of my life I have never discussed and am not particularly happy with, nor proud of. To be perfectly honest I was expecting to be turned down, or at best referred to some to some other Unit, perhaps abroad, but he simply smiled and said “I quite understand”… and all the tension was gone and I knew I was home. In all these months, I have (rightly) been assessed again and again, but I never felt judged. Sometimes challenged, but never judged and always supported. John has great empathy and a smile that can feel like ten hugs. He also has a terrific (sometimes terrible!) sense of humour.

Although I am well aware of the sadly low success rates at my age (40) and indeed the cycles I have had so far have been unsuccessful, these months have been really happy for me. At long last I am doing something to have my children and although like many I have thought of them for many years (I gave up smoking aged 17 because - teenagers always see things as black or white - I was worried about possible harm to my future babies…), I never felt them as close as they are now. Knowing throughout that I was giving my children the best possible chance and that they were in his hands has been really important to me. Knowing that I will never ever have to look back in regret and wonder if it would have been different in another clinic or with another doctor has kept me positive and happy, and even if I should remain childless at the end (which is quite possible) I think that the positive, empowering thought of knowing that I gave it my best will keep me in good spirit as indeed it has whenever a cycle failed.

With regard to the success rate, I also find very comforting the fact that John is well known for calling a spade a spade. This has also been very important for me as I know of friends in other Units who have been kept cycling again and again, while in my case as one of his colleagues put it “One thing you can be sure of is that John will definitely tell you if he thinks you are wasting your time, he is known for being blunt/honest so he won't keep you going on if he doesn't think you have a chance”. Even in the best hands IVF takes quite an emotional toll and I am most grateful that I can be sure I am not kept running in circles for financial or strategic reasons. And speaking of financial gain, I think it is very significant that instead of choosing some cushy private practice as many of his colleagues, he chose to stay in a not-for-profit NHS clinic, in a rather deprived part of London.

From a surgical point of view, he has a very light and skilled hand. Many of my friends in other clinics experienced significant pain and were left penguin-walking for days after egg collection or even embryotransfer. I never had any pain, and went back to normal activities straight after egg collection in each one of my cycles; from what I can see of friends who are also patients at King’s, this seems to be quite consistent across the board. I think it also highlights how the rest of his Team are also well-prepared and nurtured.

John’s commitment and dedication to women’s health and the idea that every child should be a wanted child are also palpable when looking at his activity across all aspects of different needs. I am lucky enough that neither I nor anybody in my family ever needed a termination of pregnancy, but having seen the devastating effects of poor care in other women, I find quite noticeable that not only he is able to see both sides of the problem, but he is also able to see the different but equally strong pain of women on the opposite ends of this spectrum, respect and support the choice of both, and, as far as possible, minimise the distress involved (for instance by keeping the Assisted Conception Unit and the terminations away from each other and from the Antenatal Clinics and Labour Ward). It is attention to seemingly small details like these that make all the difference.
Even in his research and publications (and in this day and age anything to do with embryos or early pregnancies could provide material for plenty papers on pure science or applied science in the broad sense of the definition) his interest remains focussed on the patient: “how can we predict the outcome? How can we improve the results? How can we minimise distress?” seem to be the leading questions and the main part of his academic work.

I certainly think that this would be a much deserved award for somebody who not only has done so much personally but has also enabled (through teaching, example, and help) so many others to walk the same path.

Anonymous.

To Whom It May Concern

We are writing in support of the nomination of John Parsons for the Clinician of the year award.

John established the Assisted Conception Unit at King’s College Hospital in 1983 and has been the lead consultant of the service since 1986.

As a lead he always has the interests of patients first and foremost and is always willing to give the patients thorough, informative and detailed advice.

He is quite reluctant to keep up with the current market rates charged to IVF patients, and very keen to provide IVF treatment to self-funding patients on a non -profit basis.

Under John’s influence, King’s ACU has consistently set itself as a role model for the field.
In working with both nurses and junior doctors he is very supportive and a very good role model to his colleagues.
John has continually worked towards empowering nurses in their role and also promoting the development of their skill sets. King’s ACU nurses were amongst the first in the UK to be trained to perform egg collections.

On a personal level with staff he is very approachable and always willing to listen to any reasonable argument and consider the opinions of others.

He is very hard-working, sometimes working very long hours in the Unit and frequently working on his days off or coming in on days that he should be away on leave.
We describe him as being supportive, practical, knowledgeable, fun and interesting- always with a story to tell. These are some of the qualities that make him special. This view of him is shared by us, his colleagues and patients alike.

We truly believe that he is very deserving of this award and hope that you will understand our support and passion for him to receive it.

Yours Truly

The Assisted Conception Unit Staff, King’s College Hospital

Comments from John Parsons on receiving his award:

"I really was over whelmed by the whole experience. It was kind of so many people to say so many nice things about me – but oh so embarrassing to read! It is very hard to feel I deserve the award – but I will try to live up to it. Thank you to those who pulled the citations together and picked me from the list of contenders – and of course thank you to you for getting me to the presentation and being so warm and nice about my being chosen."