OBITUARIES
Sid Watkins
The Formula One doctor who made racing safer
In his memoir of his career as the Formula One
doctor, Sid Watkins describes how he urged the
racing driver Ayrton Senna not to drive on the
circuit at Imola in Italy, the day after Roland
Ratzenburger was killed in practice and two days
after another promising young driver, Rubens
Barichello, was injured.1
Watkins told Senna: “You have been world
champion three times, you are obviously the
quickest driver. Give it up and let’s go fishing.”
Senna replied: “Sid, there are certain things over
which we have no control. I cannot quit, I have to
go on.” Hours later the charismatic Brazilian was
killed on the track.
Senna’s death deeply affected Watkins, a
professor of neurosurgery. Manish Pandey, an
orthopaedic surgeon and screenwriter who got to
know Watkins when researching the film Senna,
says that Watkins and the charismatic Brazilian
enjoyed a father and son relationship. They stayed
at each other’s houses, knew each other’s famiBy 1994 things had changed beyond all reclies, and went fishing together on Senna’s estate
in Brazil.
ognition, and today’s race tracks have medical
The two became close when Watkins, known facilities that would shame many NHS hospitals.
“His whole thing was to make sure the facilion the circuit as “Prof,” treated Senna for Bell’s
palsy in 1984. Senna was relatively new to the ties were fantastic and to make sure the personGrand Prix circuit and didn’t want to miss a race. nel were top notch. Modern [Formula One] circuits
“Prof gave him steroids and covered for him. have mini-operating theatres; they have anaesHe knew that he was fit to race.
thetists, orthopaedic surgeons,
That’s where the bond started,” At a track in Argentina
general surgeons,” says Pandey.
in 1978, his first job
Pandey said.
Hugh Scully, professor of car“On that day in Imola, Prof was to sweep the dead
diac surgery at the University of
Toronto and a member of the
knew Senna was distraught. He flies from the shed that
regretted that he wasn’t more had been allocated as a
Formula One team of specialists,
forceful and hadn’t been able to medical facility
says Watkins was meticulous in
stop him racing,” said Pandey.
his preparation: “He would do
Before Senna’s death Watkins’ main role had an inspection of the teams positioned around the
been to improve medical facilities on the track, circuit several times each day over the course of
which, when he was appointed Formula One the race to ensure that everything was in place.”
Scully adds: “Michael Schumacher said that
medical delegate by Bernie Ecclestone in 1978,
were fairly rudimentary.
when Sid was on the track ‘we all feel safe.’”
In the foreword to Watkins’ book, the racing
Watkins also insisted on tracks having helidriver Niki Lauda, who was badly burned in a race copter transport, and at one race in Belgium he
in 1976, describes the circuit medical facilities in ordered that the start of a race be delayed while
the 1970s as “haphazard in the extreme; you just a problem with a helicopter was fixed. When
crossed your fingers and hoped you would not officials questioned this, Ecclestone reportedly
have an accident at certain tracks.” Watkins told retorted, “What Prof says goes,” says Pandey.
Pandey how, at a track in Argentina in 1978, his
Watkins also had doctors positioned around the
first job was to sweep the dead flies from the shed circuit so that they could get to accidents within
that had been allocated as a medical facility.
minutes, if not seconds.
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SUTTON IMAGES/CORBIS
Eric Sidney Watkins OBE, professor of
neurology, (b 1928; q University of Liverpool
1952; FRCS), died from complications
of cancer on 12 September 2012
After Senna’s death Max Mosley, the recently
appointed president of motorsport’s governing body the Fédération Internationale de
l’Automobile, gave Watkins the job of improving
safety, and he assembled a team of engineering
experts and scientists. The team researched and
introduced the collapsible steering column; protective foam around the top of the cockpit; new
crash tests for front, rear, and side impacts; and
the head and neck support device that must be
worn by every driver.
Watkins also recommended changes to the
tracks, redesigning them so that they could
absorb the energy of a crashing vehicle and made
the bends safer. There has not been a death or
serious injury in Formula One since Senna’s
death at Imola. Watkins’ work also influenced
the design of road cars, as the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile worked with the European Commission on improving crash tests and
car safety.
Watkins’ love of motorsport dated from his
childhood in Liverpool, where his family owned
a garage and bike shop. He studied medicine at
Liverpool University and then trained as a neurosurgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, from
where he would visit the Silverstone racing circuit.
He was appointed professor of neurosurgery at
Syracuse Hospital in New York, where he worked
as the track doctor at the Watkins Glen racetrack.
In 1970 he was appointed the first professor of
neurosurgery at the Royal London Hospital.
One of his colleagues at the Royal London,
Alastair Wilson, lead surgeon in emergency medicine, remembers a larger than life character who,
with his cigar habitually clamped in his mouth,
would be ready with a glass of whisky at the end
of a shift.
Watkins campaigned for an air ambulance for
London, which the capital finally got in 1990.
After an intense bidding war, the Royal London
won the right to have the helicopter based there,
and its helipad became operational in 1991. It
frustrated Watkins that the UK was one of the last
countries in western Europe to get an air ambulance, said Wilson.
Wilson said, “He could not be doing with prejudice. He hated people who were inflexible, and he
did exactly what he thought was right.”
He leaves a wife, Susan, a playwright and historian; four sons; and two daughters.
Anne Gulland journalist, London, UK
[email protected]
References are in the version on bmj.com.
Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e7028
BMJ | 27 OCTOBER 2012 | VOLUME 345
OBITUARIES
Antony John
Essex-Cater
Former medical officer of health
Jersey (b 1923; q Charing Cross
Hospital 1948; DCH RCP, DPH,
FFPH, AFOM RCP (Lond)),
d 5 January 2012.
Antony John Essex-Cater (“Tony”)
did his national service in the Royal
Air Force and entered public health in
Croydon before touring the country
with posts in Swansea, Birmingham,
Manchester, and Monmouthshire.
He was a member of the steering
committee for the reorganisation
of the NHS for the Welsh Office, a
founder member of the faculty of
community medicine, and medical
officer for health on Jersey, where
he also worked as a venereologist.
In retirement he visited Tonga for
the World Health Organization, to
assess the suitability of setting up a
health service on the island. For many
years Tony was the chairman of the
National Association of Maternal and
Child Welfare. Predeceased by a son,
he leaves his wife, Jane, and three
children.
Alison Essex-Cater
Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e6450
Edward Daniel Fox
Former consultant dermatologist
Hertford, Chelmsford, and Saudi
Arabia; former general practitioner
Ilford (b 1924; q London 1952;
MRCGP, CertAvMed), died from
complications of a fractured femur
on 3 November 2011.
Edward Daniel Fox took over a
singlehanded urban practice in
Ilford but soon moved with his family
to rural Essex. There he worked as
a clinical assistant in dermatology,
subsequently becoming consultant
dermatologist as well as developing
a Harley Street practice, leaving
his own general practice to locum
cover. In 1985-7 he worked as
BMJ | 27 OCTOBER 2012 | VOLUME 345
consultant dermatologist at the
King Fahad Hospital in Saudia
Arabia. Widowed before retirement,
he sold up in England and spent
his summers in Cyprus and his
winters in the Rockies, indulging
his lifelong interest in skiing. He
was still practising as a consultant
dermatologist in Paphos, at the time
of his sudden death, shortly after
visiting his son in Israel.
Tony Fincham
Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e6463
Patricia Mathews
General practitioner Portadown
(b 1955; q Belfast 1979), died
from metastatic breast disease on
22 March 2012.
Patricia (“Trish”) Mathews (née
Carson) chose primary care as
her specialty and on completion
of general practitioner training
worked in the Bahamas for a short
time. She and husband Colin (also
a 1979 graduate) then moved to
Portadown to work together in the
Orchard Family Practice. Away from
work Trish was an enthusiastic
supporter of integrated education
in Northern Ireland, helping with
many fundraising events, and giving
strong support to the teaching staff
of the new school in Portadown.
Although her professional and
family life was blighted by her own
illness, she rarely missed a day’s
work and was an inspiration to
patients and colleagues. She leaves
Colin and a son.
Colin W Mathews
Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e6451
David McGill
General practitioner
Scarborough (b 1920; q Glasgow
1943), d 2 September 2012.
After house jobs in Kilmarnock,
David McGill was posted to India
and Burma during and after the
war, where he developed an
her death. Pippa enjoyed walking,
cycling, and sailing. She loved travel
and was a keen gardener. She leaves
her husband, Paul, and a son.
J J Green, Mark Carri, Paul Emmett
Claudia Schroder, Suma Paiyadi
Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e6311
interest in physical medicine and
rehabilitation. In 1947 he entered
general practice in Scarborough but
maintained his links with the army
and his interest in rehabilitation.
His main interest in practice,
however, were his patients and
their families, and how mental
and physical illness affected their
lives. He disliked the move to larger
group practices and the consequent
distancing from his patients, and he
was pleased to retire in 1980. His
first wife, Catherine, died in 1985,
but he remarried and enjoyed a
happy retirement. He leaves his
wife, Mary; four children; and nine
grandchildren.
Ron McGill
Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e6454
Philippa Anne
Mitchelson
General practitioner
(b 1962; q Liverpool University
1986), died from metastatic
breast cancer on 26 November
2011.
Philippa Anne Mitchelson (“Pippa”)
did her general practitioner training
in Northwich. She then worked as
a locum before joining the South
Parade Practice, which is now the
Craig Y Don Medical Practice, in
Llandudno on the north Wales coast
in 1995 as the first female partner.
A compassionate and caring doctor,
she was immensely popular with
patients. As a partner she was hard
working and considerate. Sixteen
years ago she was diagnosed with
breast cancer and five years later
with metastases. She worked full
time until a few months before
Issy Pilowsky
Professor emeritus of psychiatry
(b 1935; q 1957; MD, DPM,
FRANZCP, FRCPsych, FRACP),
died from a brain tumour on
17 August 2012.
Issy Pilowsky was awarded an MD
from the University of Cape Town for
his thesis on hypochondriasis, the
basis for his later work on abnormal
illness behaviour. In 1959 he and
his first wife left apartheid South
Africa for England and Issy turned
to psychiatry. In 1966 the Pilowsky
family relocated to Australia, and
in 1971 Issy became professor
of psychiatry in Adelaide. He
became increasingly interested in
the concept of abnormal illness
behaviour, published on the
subject, and developed a research
questionnaire. In 1987 Issy
experienced the first symptoms of a
brain tumour. Over the years he had
bouts of surgery, radiotherapy, and
chemotherapy. He remarried after
his wife’s death. Issy leaves three
children, five grandchildren, and his
second wife, Sandra.
Sandra Braude
Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e6920
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